


What A Difference One Day Makes

by Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship



Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 25,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship/pseuds/Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even Zenith could not have guessed at the consequences of shooting a scavenging zeldrate. Rating for the inevitable violence of a war, and language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read this, I must admit to something: this fanfic is pure self gratification, and I will not pretend otherwise. I'm writing this because, at the moment, my Jedi Consular can't get into Zenith's pants. I need an outlet for all these fangirly hormones, so here you go! A passably written story about Zenith and a girl.
> 
> Though now that I've put 99% of the people reading this off, she's not going to be SUPER KAWAII JEDI SUGARPLUM FAERIE, AKA The Worst Mary Sue Ever. I can at least promise you that much.
> 
> And now, on to the story!
> 
> This is completely un-betad and straight from the strange recesses of my brain. I own nothing except Magdelena.
> 
> UPDATE 15/08/2015: I'm slowly but surely editing the fic!

There had never yet been a day Magdalena had been so glad to leave behind as this one. It had gone from a busy day to a bad one like _that_. There had been two euthanasias that day – one had been an emergency call in: the cat had been hit by a car, and on presentation she had informed the owners that it would not survive the night. The traumatised woman had held her cat as it relaxed into sleep and passed away. The second had been an aging cancer patient who had reached the end of its dignified and long life.

Now all she needed was to get home and sit down and cuddle her own cats and just _cry_ , because a vet crying during a consultation was just not done. They had to be the strong, clinical one, with enough compassion on their faces to ease the pain of their clients and ensure that they knew this was the _last_ choice a vet ever wanted to make, but it was the only one.

Magdalena scrubbed at her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced the sorrows of the day into the back of her head through sheer strength of will. She would _not_ cry until she got home. She'd go all blotchy and snotty and people would look at her funny.

She loved her job, she really did. She got to work with fantastic people, doing what she loved, and there was no greater feeling than discharging a patient who had been really touch-and-go for a while. But losing them was hard. She hoped, in a quiet recess of her brain, that it always would be. It proved to herself that she cared enough to put her all into keeping them alive.

At least the clinic was close enough that she could walk home each evening. The evening itself was deeply pleasant, skies purpling across the sunset and a brisk southerly wind heralding the onset of winter. She huddled further into her coat as the wind tugged at her legs.

Magdalena heard the slap of feet on the footpath behind her seconds before she was slammed into the concrete. Her hands came up to protect her face, elbows eating the worst of the fall. She howled and rolled, curling her arms into herself. She was still partially covered by this odd weight, and it took her a few more moments to realise someone was rummaging through her coat pockets. She bucked and brought a knee up, he – it sounded like a male – grunted in pain and the weight lifted briefly.

A knife caught the last rays of the sun as the shadow brought it down. There was no time to scream. Just pain, flaming agony, then sweet black.

* * *

Even through the fog Magdalena could feel it. The knife had gone through her abdomen, just cranial to the tenth rib laterally on her left. Her elbows were, at best, badly bruised and scraped. At worst: broken. Her head thrummed. Her fingers twitched at her thought of applying pressure to the wound. Everything was too heavy to move.

A whuffling sound to her right. Adrenaline snapped her eyes open, hands twitched towards the wound. The movement set her nerves alight. She hissed. The responding hiss set a chill flying down her spine. She creaked her head to the right and her intestines turned to jelly. A lizard-like muzzle was deformed by a pair of tusks jutting up from its lower jaw.

_One thing's for sure_ , her brain supplied, _that thing ain't a herbivore_. It sniffed in her direction, cautious, testing the new addition to its environment to determine the appropriate response – fight, flight, or eat. It jerked forwards. _Smells like food_ , she thought. She moved her right hand carefully up to her chest. The nose looked soft, and with its apparent dependence on scent, it would likely have a high number of nerve endings there. The lizard thing was going to get a surprise before it got a chomp.

It was eager to get on with its meal, maw opened wide as it sashayed towards her, rows of manky teeth on display. It was terrible how her brain immediately began to figure out the best process for tartar removal as her fist clenched up, ready to smack its face.

She never got the chance. As it pulled itself up and back to strike, its head exploded. She jerked backwards and into the earth, blinking her eyes tightly as globules of lizard brains and bits hit her face. The body teetered for a moment. Collapsed onto her legs. Bile rose in her throat, side shrieking as she tried to roll over. She twisted her head to vomit, tears streaming down her face as her body _wholeheartedly protested_ at the torment of contracting with a knife-wound in her side.

“Oh god,” she murmured. A pair of boots slowly clunked into her blurred sight. “Please...” The blessed dark rose and claimed her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 15/08/2015: This chapter has been updated.
> 
> Very minor content change. Read it again anyway :D

* * *

_Just sunshine_  
_And blue sky_  
_That's just how it goes_  
_For living here_

* * *

Her first thought upon gaining consciousness was _the cats!_ Her second thought, something along the lines of _where the fuck am I_ , was drowned out by the overpowering _throb_ _throb throb_ from her abdomen and head. She tried to pull her arms in against her side to curl up in the foetal position – because that's what you _do_ when you're in pain. She couldn't move. Memory crept back in on the back of the lizard, the exploding head and the boots. They must have taken her somewhere and bound her, but with the aching that came from everywhere at once, she couldn't quite make sense of how she was bound.

A door slammed open and stars rammed into the backs of her eyelids. She blinked one eye open. Even through the crust of tears she recognised those boots. Her head was rolled forwards on her neck, giving her a glorious view of the floor and not much else. A strap ran across her shoulders and her arms were bound by her wrists at her sides. She was sure her ankles would be restrained similarly to her wrists. She didn't test them.

A voice growled at her. Her shoulders hunched and her spine sought to retract at the fury trickling down her ear canals. Another voice piped in. Another male, this one more controlled. Almost pleading. The words kept slipping past her ears, like she should understand them but just … couldn't. The first voice barked at her.

She snapped her head up, going from boots to face without seeing much between other than a rather large gun at his hip. The sudden move jarred her side and she whimpered.

The reasonable man's voice cut through again, insistent. The first man cut him off with another bark and grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks tightly between his fingers with a jerk. It set off a chain reaction in her head and stomach and suddenly she was retching and crying and pleading “please, let me go, please let me go” at the floor around mouthfuls of stomach contents and tears. The man uttered a growl and yelled at her, gesturing violently. She sobbed at the floor, every movement wrenching out a whimper as the knife wound pulled.

Finally, Magdalena raised her head and brought her eyes up to the fierce man. Purple irises burned under prominent brows. She was in too much pain to be afraid. “Please let me go,” she whispered. The second man stepped into view then, bearded and with a face full of concern. He said something to the purple-eyed man, something that had him making a strange noise in the back of his throat - one of frustration - before spinning out of the room as quickly as he came in. The bearded man rolled up his sleeves and gently, so gently, took Magdalena's shoulders and looked her in the eye.

He spoke then, directly to her. The words washed over her head in a river and she could only stare dumbly at him. He made soothing noises as he unstrapped her wrists and her ankles and then the strap about her shoulders. Careful not to jar her side, he lifted her up and, like she weighted nothing, carried her through the door and into the light.

* * *

She next awoke to a distinct lack of pain and the discomfort of lying on a thin mattress spread atop a very solid surface. She twitched her hand to her side, slowly running her fingers over the bandages there. She was covered in a rough sheet and … _oh_ , her top was gone. Suddenly embarrassed, Magdalena opened her eyes and clutched the sheet to her chest. It had been sheer fortune she had been wearing her comfortable cloth bra – it acted to hide her entire chest and preserve at least some of her modesty.

There was a clatter of metal and the bearded man rushed into view. He made a number of enquiries of her, the words garbled and confused as though her brain couldn't _quite_ process them yet. She looked up at him and just shook her head slowly.

“I'm sorry, I don't understand,” she replied. Her own voice, her own words, sounded normal. He looked at her strangely and said something else, this in a recognisably different language. She shook her head again and he sighed. Quickly overcoming his disappointment, he moved the sheet to reveal the bandaging about her body. He admired his handywork for a moment.

“Please, where am I?” she asked, touching the man's wrist, but he just smiled sadly at her and shook his head. The language barrier worked both ways. Well, there was no helping it. She'd have to find out herself. Potentially not her brightest move. If she was in a suburb, or in the boonsticks, she'd hardly be able to identify _where_ in New Zealand she was. And if she was in the outback of Waikikamukau, she'd have shit luck actually getting home. Still, it was better than doing nothing, so she gripped her sheet tight and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

Magdalena squeaked when her toes came in contact with the cold ground. The doctor spun around, a look of confusion on his face. Before he could gather himself, Magd tucked the sheet out of the way of her legs and shot out the door.

Down several corridors she sped, her loping stride easily keeping her ahead of the doctor. She'd had plenty of years' practice keeping up with her older brother, who was _ginormous_ and had strides as long as most people were tall. She fervently hoped she was in a metropolitan area, ideally close to the local cop shop. If she was in fact in the outback of Waikikamukau (as she had a sinking feeling she might just be, this was a facility of a size that was quite unusual in New Zealand), she'd have to hoof it until she came to a highway and hitch from there.

The doctor's calls were getting fainter. She swished past a few open doorways with voices, all in the same almost-but-not-quite-understandable language, some talking and laughing, others murmuring in serious tones. She never looked in on them. Onwards she raced, her nerves finally kicking in to inform her, in no uncertain terms, of the still existing injury. She hissed, ground her teeth, and continued her forward charge. She slammed open the door at the end of the hallway and stopped as if she'd hit a brick wall.

She uttered the first thing her brain could supply her with: “Toto, we're not in Kansas any more.” The second thing her brain could muster up was _well this certainly isn't New Zealand, either_.

She stared down a pasture of green, dotted with faded peach flowers and brutally jagged scaled-down mountains. A lone tree stood against dirty clouds, a desiccated husk. As far as the eye could see, a distance that was reduced by smog, the land was rocky outcrops thrust this way and that from the earth.

Not 20 metres in front of her roamed thickly spined slugs on four legs. _That ain't no sheep,_ her brain helpfully suggested, _or cow_. Her hands unclenched and dropped to her sides, her sheet drooping. The doctor caught the sheet before it fell, pulling it around her. Magdalena turned to him.

“Where am I?” she asked, eyes wide. “What is this place?” He gave her a look of apology and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, leading her back into the well-hidden facility.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_A revelation in the light of day  
_ _You can't choose what stays and what fades away_

* * *

Magdalena was shivering as the doctor guided her back down the hallway, her feet bare on the cold floor. The hallway stretched out before her and behind her, out that door … it was still incomprehensible. She could  _not_  have remained unconscious enough to have been flown to another country, and besides that, she didn't know anywhere that could look like …  _that_. She certainly hadn't studied anything that looked like the creatures out there.

A door opened on her left, nearly hitting the doctor, and a man stepped out. He stopped in the hallway, his grey eyes intent on Magdalena's face. The doctor mumbled something that sounded like an apology and hurried Magdalena on her way. As she passed the open doorway she caught sight of the angry purple-eyed man. His eyes still burned, but in this light she could see him more clearly. His brows were curiously bald, though prominent and well defined. His head, too, lacked hair but appeared to just continue in two fleshy protrusions … that wasn't right. A noise leaked from her throat, garbled and distressed, and she couldn't pull her eyes from him. He was faintly green-skinned, and the flesh on his … head … tentacles … had dark green markings.

She couldn't keep watching him and walking at the same time, regardless that the doctor was helping her along, so twisted her head back to watch the hallway pass her by. Where the  _hell_  was she?

* * *

Zenith watched until Doc and the strange woman was out of sight. Doc would be the death of them all. One look at a pretty little thing and he was gone, add an injury to the mix and he became an unstoppable force. But he was tolerated because he was damn good, and when push came to shove, there was no better combat medic.

Gray Star gave him a sidelong glance. "She the one you dragged in?" Zenith nodded. "She's no imp." He looked at the hologram of the older alien sharply, mouth open to query. "You didn't see the look she gave you? Like she'd never seen a twi'lek before. No imp would be that dumb."

Zenith sighed. "You do have a point." Her eyes had been wide and … a mixture of terrified and that frantic look people got when they had seen beyond their capacity to comprehend. "But if she's not scum, what is she?" The Gran's eyes twitched to the hallway where Doc and the woman had gone.

"Damned if I know, boy," he grunted. "But I've no doubt we'll find out soon enough. Now, don't let your mind wander, I need your brains switched on for this."

* * *

The doctor urged her back on to her bed. Magdalena complied, her brain tripping itself up as it tried to figure out what was going  _on_. Her eyes roamed the room, taking in the unfamiliar architecture and strange set up. It was a large room, beds in neat rows filling the majority of the area. Around the outside were metal cabinets secured to the walls, benches pushed up against their sides.

She watched as the doctor went over to one of the cabinets and opened it, pulling out some small vials and clipping them into a small metal contraption. Lifting it up to eye level, pushed the cabinet doors shut and wandered back to Magdalena's bed. He smiled at her and beaconed for her arm. She complied without a fuss, and sat very still as he sprayed her arm, swabbed it, and pressed the metal contraption to the sterilised area. Then he depressed the trigger and Magdalena twitched at the sensation of hundreds of tiny needles pricking her skin and the contents of the vial was released into her arm.

The doctor positively beamed at her as he removed the contraption and wiped her arm down. He then placed the injector and swab on the bed behind him and turned his full focus on her. He pointed at himself and said something, a single word. Magdalena looked at him quizzically. He pointed at himself again and repeated the word and she mentally kicked herself for being slow. His  _name_ , he was telling her his  _name_. So she nodded and mimicked him - "*Doc*" - and boy, if she thought he was happy before hand, the smile that spread across his face nearly split it in two and his eyes positively  _twinkled_. Excited now, he pointed at her.

"Magdalena," she enunciated. He repeated it and she smiled back. "Or Magd," she said after a moment.

"Magd," Doc said, rolling it over his tongue. "Magd," he said again and smiled brilliantly at her. Her eyes started to droop and he immediately returned to being a doctor, like a switch was flipped, and helped her to lie down. Once she was on her back, he covered her with another blanket, adjusted her pillow beneath her head, and let her be as she drifted into an induced sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a medic, nor a doctor, nor a surgeon. There may be some inaccuracies, but I've tried to minimise them as much as possible.

* * *

_I am titanium_

* * *

It was a slow drag out of slumber, her brain supplying her with a fantastic rendition of Mr Bojangles before she could understand what was going on in her own mind.

 _Mr Bojangles, Mr Boooojangles … dance,_  her brain sang as the rest of her brain started up. It took a few attempts before it finally whirred into life with  _that's right, where the FUCK am I?_  She snapped her eyes open and stared at the metal ceiling, slowly but surely becoming aware of every bit of her surrounding, especially the very solid bed she was lying on.  _Mr BooOOOOOjangles!_  her brain supplied.  _DANCE!_

Her fingers slid up to her bandaged side while the song continued,  _then he shook his head, and as he shook his head I swear I heard somebody ask "please, please!"_  Doc had done a good job wrapping her, and she still felt no pain. The painkillers Doc had here were fantastic, and certainly didn't appear to be effecting her cognitive function.

Magdalena lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling. As she turned herself to assessing her situation, her mind stopped its wake-up performance and focused. Immediate things first. She had been stabbed, and she had received medical attention. She was in a medical room in some kind of facility. Within this facility were a number of people – probably more than she had heard in her ill-fated escape to the exit – one of whom was an angry … person … with fleshy protrusions coming out of the back of his head, and green skin, don't forget that skin, while the other one was Doc. Doc, at least, had patched her up and appeared friendly. Oh, and none of them spoke English.

Then the facility itself was in the middle of somewhere that was  _definitely not New Zealand_. In fact, she would go so far as to say  _definitely not on Earth_. Which begged the question, once again, of  _where the fuck am I_. An question she could neither ask nor answer.

 _Or this could all be some death-induced delirium, who knows_. Which was not the most pleasant thought in the world, but it had to be considered nonetheless. Especially considering the sheer impossibility of her current predicament.  _I mean, really, what is the likelihood of being on a different planet surrounded by humans and aliens who speak another language?_  She giggled even as her stomach dropped. It was ridiculous. And, unless this was just a  _really vivid dream_ , the only reasonable explanation.

So she continued to stare at the ceiling and tried to just  _not think_ , because thinking took her to dangerous conclusions that made her stomach feel terrible. She listened, and concentrated on what her ears could tell her.

There was no one else in the room, that much was evident. There were no shuffles, huffs, or faint breathing. There was, in actual fact, a distinct lack of sound of any kind. A quick glance confirmed that the door to the infirmary was shut. It could be that the place was soundproofed to assist in recovery.

The sound of boots slapping the ground at a run down the hallway negated that thought, and the door burst open. She sat up slowly, watching as the angry green alien and another man hauled a third man into the infirmary, bleeding from a large and deep incision in his calf. Doc wasn't here.

"Shit," she said. Putting on her best Vet Face, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She remembered too late that she was not exactly appropriately dressed, but by that stage the sheet was around her waist and … really, there was an injured man there, and the sheet was just going to get in the way.

Magdalena met purple eyes and beaconed him to bring the man over. He hesitated for a moment, but complied as the man groaned. Without a doubt, he had lost a considerable amount of blood. She slapped her hand on the bed beside her, indicating with her other hand for them to lift him and put him on it. It took both men straining to lift the injured man up and onto the bed, but they managed it, and Magdalena immediately turned to the leg.

It was deep and it was big, but the edges were cleanly split – he had been cut by something sharp. She ripped a sheet off a neighbouring bed and folded it up, pushing it onto the incision  _hard_. The man howled and jerked to sitting position.

"Hold him down!" she yelled. She looked up from her hands and looked at the green tail-headed alien. "You, come here!" There was a moment's pause. "Oh fuck, that's right." A quick glance sideways proved the other man – a dark haired chap with a rather prominent nose that had been broken at  _least_  once – had restrained her white-faced patient. Moving quickly, she let go of the sheet over the wound, grabbed the green alien by the hands and wrapped his over the impromptu pressure pad. His hands hovered, unwilling to put more pressure down and cause more pain, but Magdalena put her own hands on his and  _pushed_ , locking eyes with him. "I need you to  _hold this_ ," she said sternly, giving his hands one more push before she spun away to the cupboards.

Now, which one did Doc go into …  _that one_. She made a beeline for it and swung it open. The metal injector sat in the bottom right corner and all through the cupboard were vials with different coloured liquids within. Doc had used a sedative, a vial filled with a particularly alarming green liquid, and right now that's what she needed. That wound would need to be cleaned and sewed back up, and it would be kinder on the man to have him asleep while it all happened.

Fortunately, the vial fitted the injector in an intuitive manner, and she had it equipped before she'd shut the cupboard doors. She grabbed the steriliser and swab from the bench and returned to her groaning patient. Tail-head was still applying pressure, the blood just beginning to leak through the many layers of sheet she had folded. The guy with the multiply broken nose was talking to her patient in low, soothing tones while he kept his shoulders pressed to the bed.

"Very good," Magdalena said, setting her equipment down on the bed beside his head. She began rolling up the man's sleeve, pushing it up until it relinquished its cover of his deltoid. She whipped up the steriliser spray and gave his arm a quick squirt, wiped it down, and placed the injector against his skin. She took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The vial drained into his arm, and when it was empty, she removed it and wiped the injection site down. She let the sleeve fall, covering it.

Now to start clearing away the injury site. She moved the injector and steriliser to the benches, throwing out the swab as she did so, and began to search through the draws for a pair of scissors. That pants leg was coming off, and she wasn't in any state to go tearing it herself. And if she really was on a different planet, who knew what kind of material they used? For all she knew, it could be super-tough-dirt-deviant stuff!

"AHAH!" she crowed as her hands held a pair of straight surgical scissors, fortunately with slightly blunted ends so she wouldn't go jabbing him in the leg as she was removing the cloth. When she got back to her patient, he was already starting to relax, and the man with the crooked nose didn't have to put quite as much pressure on his shoulders. She touched his shoulder to get his attention and he looked up, surprised. "*Doc*," she said, clearly and slowly and hoped like hell her pronunciation was correct. "I need you to get *Doc*." His eyes widened but he nodded and, after a last glance at her patient's face – he was now well off into lala land – released his shoulders and ran out the door. Oh boy did she hope he was going to get Doc.

She turned her attention to the pants and pinched them up, making a quick snip for an initial cut and then inserting the scissors and cutting it all the way round to the back of his leg. Clothing now out of the way of the incision, she put the scissors on the bed behind her and moved up to his head. She pressed her fingers to his neck, seeking his pulse. It took her a few seconds to find it, but once found, she held her fingers to it for a while. It was slow and certainly not as strong as she had expected, but she could make no conclusions as, let's face it, she had spent six years studying animals, not humans.

Racing footsteps down the hallway heralded Doc's return. His hair was mussed from sleep and he was shirtless, but he was already in doctor mode. He immediately went for his gloves, eyes trained on his patient. He noticed the injector and his eyes were furious, going from tail-head to Magdalena.

"It was the one you gave me," Magdalena said, pointing to herself, then him, then to her own arm. He nodded, a tiny smile twitching at his lips. He gently pushed tail-head out of the way, his hands taking over applying the pressure. Doc said something to him and he nodded and, casting a glance at Magdalena, left the infirmary.

Doc slowly and carefully lifted the sheet, hissing as he saw the large incision in the man's calf. He placed the sheet back and went over to the bench, stripping his current gloves and throwing them in the trash. He pulled out a small pack of equipment and and surgical mask. He placed the equipment on the bed beside the patient and snapped the surgical mask on, returning to the sink. Spraying something on his arms, he scrubbed, from elbow to hands, then rinsed and, without touching anything else, slipped some new gloves on. He returned to the beside of the patient and, with his foot, hooked a stool out from under the neighbouring bed and plonked himself on it. Magdalena noted it kept him at the perfect height to work on a patient on any of the beds around.

He gently plied back the sheet, which was stuck in parts to the wound with blood. He opened his pack and pulled out what looked like a little squirty bottle. He carefully inserted it between the two sides of the incision and depressed, liquid pouring out and into the wound. He continued this, his other hand carefully opening the incision to inspect the insides as he flushed it. Clearly satisfied that the wound was cleaned, he pulled out some gauze swabs and began to clean the area around it with the liquid from the squirty bottle, ever so careful not to contaminate the wound with the liquid runoff from the skin. Completed, he placed the squirty bottle and gauzes to one side and pulled out a roll of surgical thread and a semicircular tapered suture needle. With the ease of years of experience, he threaded the needle, rolled out his required length of thread and cut, placed a knot in one end and began to sew.

Magdalena admired his form. He was brisk, running a quick and simple continuous locking stitch down the length of the wound. Once complete, he snipped the excess thread and put the needle back into the package. He pulled out a singly-wrapped … something, she wasn't entirely sure what, until he opened it to reveal a moist gauzy bandage strip, which he placed firmly over the sutures. A thicker gauze padding followed, held on by tape, and then some good old bandages.

Treatment complete, he kicked the stool back under the bed and took his used equipment over to the bench, stripping his gloves into the bin and his surgical mask to one side. Damn but the man looked exhausted. His shoulders were stooped and his head hanging slightly. His hair was still all over the place from being woken up and, she noticed with a jolt, he was still barefoot. He shuffled over to the cabinet she had rummaged through and pulled out another injector, this time fitting a blue vial to it. He grabbed a fresh swab, picked up the steriliser on his way past it, and came up beside Magdalena, at the head of the injured man.

He smiled at her tiredly, his eyes red rimmed. He handed the injector to Magdalena and sprayed a spot on his patient's neck, swabbing it down. With a bit of a cheeky grin, he stood behind her and took her hand in his, pressing the injector into the neck and squeezing her trigger finger as he did so. Heat crawled up Magdalena's neck, flushing her face a bright pink as he withdrew his hand and stepped back. Still blushing furiously, she handed the injector back to Doc and went back to 'her bed'. She hopped back up on it and watched him potter around, cleaning his equipment, before smiling brilliantly at her and departing again, presumably for more sleep.

She lay back down herself and closed her eyes. Now, at least, there was another noise in the medical ward, even if it was an unconscious man's breathing.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

_On this night  
Everybody better be prepared_

* * *

It was all so terribly convenient that, by the time Doc woke up the next morning, the majority of the resistance had left on a scheduled raid, leaving only the skeleton crew and a junior resistance member standing guard outside the medical ward. He raised an eyebrow at the kid – Rek, if he remembered correctly – who stood rigid as a cadaver to one side of the doors.

"Oi, coffee and food, go," Doc barked and Rek jumped in surprise.

"But sir, I've been given orders to guard here," the young man mumbled, eyes wide and hands shaking.

"Kid, I've got a room full of surgical instruments and I get  _inventive_  if I don't get my coffee," he growled and bared his teeth and oh boy did  _that_  get him moving! The kid nearly squeaked as he marched down the hallway. Doc managed to hold the laugh until he was in the door and the kid was, hopefully, out of earshot.

It took him a few minutes of good solid guffawing to straighten himself up and take in Magd, sitting on her bed with her knees crossed and a look of utter bemusement on her face. He was still wiping tears from the corners of his eyes when he reached her bedside, her inquisitive blue eyes watching his every movement.

"Ah, sorry about that," Doc said, giving her the grin that made ladies swoon and fan themselves. She just smiled back, one dark brow raised. "Now, let's get you unwrapped and have a good look at that side of yours." Damn but she was just as exotic as she had been when he left her the night before. Absolutely other-worldly, and he had seen some pretty strange other worlds, and seen some pretty strange women too. Hell, he'd slept with most of them, truth be told. Well, the pretty ones, and the ones that didn't try to eat him, and the ones that didn't try to … well now that's enough of those memories. Completely unacceptable considering the soft thing in front of him.

She watched him intently as he unwrapped her, arms raised to allow him easier access to the bandages. He was neat and quick, rolling the fabric up as he went. He couldn't help but admire the soft, golden skin he was uncovering. His eyes stopped roaming when the antibiotic anaesthetic strap-plast was uncovered. He ensured to he used the transparent strap-plast for this job so he could see  _exactly_  what was happening beneath without having to remove it. As more of the wound was revealed, he smiled. It was a healthy, healing incision. How she had received it was the real mystery.

As he wrapped it back up he pondered. She had been found, about to become dinner for a zeldrate not too far away from base camp. The peculiar thing is all eye-witness reports stated the zeldrate had  _not_  bitten her, not that a zeldrate bite looked anything like the slice in her side.

Doc finished re-bandaging Magd's side just as the kid came back, a metal tray heavy with a pot of coffee and two large bowls of porridge. It was simple fare, but it did the job. The coffee, however, was something they were enjoying while it lasted. They'd all have tremendous caffeine-withdrawals once the coffee was gone, but they'd get through it, as they always did.

Actually, truth be told, it was mainly just Doc that had the caffeine withdrawals. Most everyone else used the stimulant sparingly.

Rek placed the tray down on the bed opposite Magd's and quickly scampered out, presumably back to his post. He'd bet the rest of the coffee in the entire compound that Rek had been posted there to keep an eye on Magd.

He handed one of the bowls of porridge and a spoon to Magd, who had swung her legs over the edge of the bed and was kicking her heels absently. Then he turned to pouring his sweet sweet coffee. And then she spoke, and his hand jolted and he nearly spilled some of the precious liquid he was pouring. He could have sworn she had said …

"Coffee?" she enquired again, louder this time. She had set her porridge down beside her and was staring at the mug he had poured like it was a miracle. He stared at her for a moment, mouth agape. She said something again in her foreign tongue, then repeated her previous query of "coffee?" Doc nodded dumbly, mouth closing with a snap.

"Yes, this is coffee," he said, watching her face carefully. Her eyes light up and the smile spread, dimpling her cheeks. Her hands reached forwards, grasping in the direction of the mug. Doc laughed and pressed the mug into her hands, watching as she took a tentative sip. She sighed and it was like the world had been lifted from her shoulders as she cradled the steaming mug of dark liquid.

He returned to pouring his own mug and took a quick gulp of it before settling down on is stool to eat the rather tasteless lump of porridge before him. At least he had something pretty to look at while he ate.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

_No shadows, just red lights  
Now I'm here to rescue you_

* * *

They had spent a good number of days going through the basic names of the medical implements in the ward – things like 'gauze' and 'needles' and 'syringe', like 'sedative' and 'antiseptic' and 'anaesthetic'. She devoured the words eagerly, investigating all of the cupboards and draws, running her admiring eyes over the packages of steralised surgical needles of various curvatures.

Doc had never been so glad to spend so much time with a gorgeous woman as he did when the resistance members came back. The casualties were carried in on improvised stretchers, or on the backs of the injured. Some hobbled in on their own.

There had been a fire fight, Sofirax had explained as Doc guided his bearers to the furthest bed. But the Imps hadn't been expecting them, and while they had been prepared for most eventualities, they had been taken by surprise. The resistance had made off with a Transport Unit stocked full of food and medical supplies.

"Which is a damn good thing, too," Doc growled at the Bothan. "If you could stay in one piece for longer than a few days, I wouldn't be running so low on everything." Sofirax laughed and waved Doc off.

"Go mend my men, I will be fine until you can tend to me," the maned alien said gruffly. Doc was already off, orchestrating the entrance and deposit of the injured. He was keen to note Magd was already organising the injured as he tended to – those most seriously wounded were guided to beds at the back and sides of the room, closest to the medical cabinetry an furthest away from the door. That way, as the bandaged up departed, they would not disturb those still healing.

The injuries were extensive to many. Pax, a young lad on his first mission with the 'big boys' was missing the lower half of his left leg and had a bandage covering the right side of his head.

"Magd!" Doc called, motioning to Pax with his fingers. "Antibiotics, antiseptic, anaesthetic, scissors!" She nodded and, waving a hobbling Straden onto a spare bed, darted to the nearest medical cabinet. She filled a tray with the injector and vials, scissors, butterfly-clip bandages and gauze, slipped her hands into a pair of surgical gloves, and rushed to Pax's bedside. Doc had moved on to Nox, Pax's older brother whose hastily-wrapped torso and pallor indicated a serious injury.

The medical cabinet was fortunately  _right next_  to Nox, so Doc snapped on his own surgical gloves, opened the cabinet, and pulled out the injector, antibiotic and sedative vial. He clipped in the sedative, clicked it into Nox's neck, replaced it with the antibiotic and clicked that into the other side of his neck. The effect was instantaneous. The young man's entire face slackened and all of the tension in his body fell away. Now he'd be able to tend to him.

Next up was the IV drip. He grabbed a gently chilled resus packet from the under-cabinet fridge and hooked it onto the IV stand attached to the bed. The quickest cannula insertion he had probably ever completed came next, and the catheter connected to it. He slid the line to 'open', waited a few moments to ensure it was all go, and turned to the torso of his patient.

With great care, Doc cut the bandages around the blood-stains, peeling them out of the way. He let his fingers take over, stripping back the bloodied and crusted bandages.

He was distracted when Magd gave a frustrated growl. He jerked his head up to see that grumpy green Twi'lek known as Zenith glowering between Magd and Pax. Her hand clutched the injector loaded with a sedative vial. The vial was still full, and the bloody Twi'lek wasn't letting her near the young man with it.

Doc was just about to open his mouth when, to his amusement, Magd grabbed Zenith's hand, shoved the injector in it, and pointed to Pax's neck at the exact spot she wanted it to go. Zenith's brows flinched upwards briefly and, as though his arms were not quite under his own control, he pressed the injector to the spot indicated and depressed the trigger, holding firm as the vial drained. Good, she had the situation under control.

Doc returned his attention to the sutures he was making up near the entirety of Nox's stomach and chest. Whoever had done the initial dressing had done a hurried, but thorough job of it. The clothing from the entire affected area had been removed and the wound itself cleaned and slathered with enough antiseptic to kill a gizka before being tightly strapped.

He tied off the end of the suture twine and trimmed off the excess. He systematically opened and laid down the antiseptic gauze, covering the entire wound which stretched from a shallow point over Nox's hip bone, all the way up to his collar bone. The big gauze pad went on over the top of that, and was taped down.

A quick glance at the fluids bag confirmed it was nearly complete. Doc scanned the room to find Magd hovering over a man with a broken leg and a number of rather impressive blaster marks across his arms. She had somehow managed to get Zenith into a pair of surgical gloves and cutting the pant leg off while she was tending to steralising the burns and covering them with antiseptic gauze. A quick check of Pax's vitals indicated he was stable, his leg-stump re-bandaged and the side of his face and head covered in gauze.

Realising Magd would need the scanner to sort out exactly what was going on with that broken leg, Doc nipped over to another cabinet and pulled out the useful gadget. He turned it on and the screen buzzed to life, showing the myriad of bones in the knee joint. Tapping Madg on the shoulder to get her attention, he pointed the scanner at the break – a good clean one, straight through the bone, with no deviation of either side of the break. Magd squeaked in delight and stared eagerly over his shoulder. Wisps of her hair tickled him.

Quickly extracting himself, Doc motioned towards the cupboards with the splints. They were essentially extendible metal bars that locked at the length required. Simple, but effective, and very easy to reproduce.

Scanning the injured, Doc was delighted to see the rest of them were not serious. A few breaks here and there and a lot of superficial blaster burns. They'd gotten off lightly this time. With a quiet breath of relief, he turned to Sofirax.

"Now," he said with a grin. "Your turn."


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

__Fallen angel_   
_Lost your wings_   
_Can't find your way back home_ _

* * *

They worked through the night and well into the next morning, kept going by Rec's constant to-ing and fro-ing with coffee. Zenith had, at some stage during the night, stopped hovering over Magd and was now slouched against the doorframe, arms crossed and scowling. Rec's head had long since slumped forwards, snoozing as he stood against the wall. It was an impressive skill, and involved locking his knees in  _just_  the right way that he wouldn't fall over. The temptation to push him was nearly overwhelming, but Doc resisted it nonetheless.

Mainly because he was just so damn impressed with the work Magd had done. She was just now putting the last plaster over a blaster wound on the arm of one of their late-comers. Pax, whose leg she had repaired earlier, was awake and eating with vigour. Doc had been delighted and surprised when he'd scanned the leg. He had shown her the bone-cutters and files, but didn't quite know how to explain them. Clearly she knew more than he gave her credit for, because that was the smoothest bone-end he had ever seen, and there was plenty enough tissue covering the end that there would be no issues healing, and certainly none attaching a robotic leg. He was even impressed she'd thought to end the leg  _above_  the knee, instead of trying to preserve what of the knee she could. It was so much easier dealing with a robotic joint than trying to support a damaged natural joint.

Even Nox was awake, although he was on some  _serious_  drugs for the pain. He also wasn't allowed to move. Not that he really wanted to. He was more occupied with the kaleidoscope of colours on the ceiling, and the description thereof, which also served to keep Pax entertained.

The last move-able patient left, thanking Magd as he did so. She nodded in response and smiled her dead-tired smile. Her hair was a mess, escaping her tightly scraped tail to stick out at all angles, and her face was ashen.

Doc snapped his gloves off and dropped them into the incinerator on his way up to Magd. He smiled as he grasped her by her shoulders. "Magd, go to bed," he said slowly, his hands trailing down her arms to grip the edges of her gloves. They came off easily, her relieved smile warming him. Then he shooed her off. She nodded, waved, and headed for the door.

Zenith, that glowering tail-headed  _twit_  of a Twi'lek, stepped across the doorway and narrowed his eyes at Magd. She stopped and growled at him. Actually pulled her gums back from her teeth and growled so deeply in her throat Doc came to the conclusion that she must be related to a bloody Nexu. Zenith didn't move. So instead she did something Doc did not expect, certainly not from someone of her slight stature.

She swung her fist, hard, at Zenith's head. He collected her fist with his hand, but her knee was already moving upwards. It connected with such force it lifted Zenith by a good few centimetres. Doc's own delicates winced in sympathy but, really … he had been begging to be hit, though maybe hitting him  _there_  had been a  _slight_  overreaction.

It was still effective. Zenith's entire face crumpled inwards as his body did, and he fell forwards with a barely audible groan. Magd took one look at him crumpled on the floor, said something in her language that sounded suitably desperate, burst into tears, and ran out the door. Rec awoke to see his ward dashing out the door and Doc rushing towards a very prone, green Twi'lek currently clutching the area between his legs. With a gulp and a glance at Zenith's predicament, clearly weighting up whether or not his future at the resistance was worth that agony, Rec ran out the door after her.

Doc loaded up an injector with a painkiller vial and shoved it into Zenith's neck. "I can't say I don't blame her," he said conversationally as he hauled the much larger man onto the nearest bed. "She's just spent the last eighteen hours fixing up  _your_  men and you won't let her go to her own bed. Shame on you." Zenith's teeth ground together loud enough for Doc to hear as he went to get the ice pack and a mild anti-inflammatory vial.

"...Imperial..." the Twi'lek gasped out.

"Absolute havrap shit," Doc snapped. "She is no such thing. Poor woman can't even speak Galactic." Zenith managed a half laugh without groaning. The painkillers must be working.

"She's got you good."

"Listen you bantha-brained idiot, she's the reason why a lot of your men are well on their way to recovery, and if she hadn't been tending to Tiddy when his lung collapsed, he'd have been another one to add to your  _list_!" He was angry, no, he was outright  _furious_ , not to mention way too tired to be dealing with this shit. "I let you hover and get in the way earlier because getting you out of the way would have taken too much time away from our patients at a critical stage. They are now either out of the ward or stable enough that I  _can_  argue with you, or sedate you if I get too fed up, which you're incredibly luck I haven't already  _done_."

Zenith's jaw twitched as he glowered up from his foetal position on the bed.

"When Rec brings her back, you're going to apologise to her – I don't care that she can't understand your words, she'll understand the tone – and then she's going to her  _own_  bed to sleep, just like she had been this past week, and you are going to stay  _here_  and  _not_  follow her like you have Rec doing, and then  _I_  am going to go to bed." Doc, finally losing the energy to yell, slumped onto his bed-side stool. "Now put this on your bits for ten minutes," he said as he threw the icepack onto the bed. He then whipped the injector out, shoved it against Zenith's neck, and depressed trigger. The vial drained almost instantly.

The Twi'lek rolled onto his back and tentatively pressed the ice-pack over his crotch, hissing in pain even through the painkillers.

"She kicks well," Doc commented. "Or rather, she knows how to use her knee. It looked pointy." Zenith glowered at him in response. "Throws a good punch, too." The glower deepened until he could barely see the glints of purple eyes beneath green brows.

There was silence for a few minutes, hardly companionable, and it was hardly silence as Nox was still describing what he was seeing on the ceiling in a floating voice, but neither Doc nor Zenith made a noise. Then, in the middle of a particularly interesting description of a kind of yellowy-orangey-green that couldn't  _possibly_  exist, Doc realised just how much time had actually passed.

"You do realise if Magd has run off and gotten lost, I'm going to send you out to find her." Zenith grunted in response and the peace continued.

* * *

 _Bugger him, bugger them, fuckbugger them ALL!_  Magd fumed, feet carrying her far, far away from that horrible little place on this shitty rock in who-the-fuck-knows-where land. The tears that burst out from her after kicking that horrible green person in the balls still clung to her cheeks and clouded her eyes.  _Good_ , she thought,  _I won't have to see all the disgusting things here_. Her feet took her over brown-green grass, around rocks, and through valleys until her lungs gasped for air and her side throbbed to make her stop and rest.

Her knees refused to hold her up, now that she had stopped, and she slid down the rock she had leaned herself against until her backside was on the floor and her legs splayed in front of her. She forced herself to breathe, slowly, in and out in deep belly breaths, despite her lungs' screams of ' _GIVE ME MORE_ '. Her side felt like it was on  _fire_. She really shouldn't have done all that running. Wouldn't surprise her if she'd torn a stitch or two. Such a stupid thing to do.

And now she was lost. Over tired, puffy eyed, exhausted from running, in considerable pain, and  _lost_  on some weird planet with who knew  _what_  kinds of wildlife. Tears pricked her eyes again and she sniffled.  _Bugger it ALL!_  She let out a quiet wail of exhaustion crossed with despair. The thought that someone would come and find her was dismissed before it even began.

 _Well, you silly bitch, there's no helping it now,_  she coached.  _It's time for you to get on your feet and hope your directionally-impaired ass can backtrack back to that bloody base_. With ground teeth and somewhat more even breath, Magd clambered to her feet. One foot in front of another, she slowly made her way back up the valley she had come down, side throbbing with every step.

She had barely made it out of the valley when she heard a plaintive cry. Every veterinarian instinct she possessed cried out at once, and she lurched towards it. There it was again, around this boulder, behind those bushes … Magd stumbled nearly head-first into the well-gored carcass of what looked like a dog crossed with a bull. The cries were coming from a single pup, trying desperately to suckle from its mothers' gouged stomach and crying when it could find nothing.

Stepping around the body, she knelt down to inspect the pup. She ran her hands over its body, feeling for breaks or surface wounds, and finding none. A small blessing, perhaps. She scooped the little thing up and into her arms and immediately it quietened, pressing itself closer into the new warmth. Cradling it so its horn-less head tucked under her chin, Madg left the death and found her way back to the path. Now she had  _two_  reasons to find the base. The second reason, however, made her more determined, made her grit her teeth and drive her legs faster. Bugger her directional impairment, she was going to find her way back, and she was going to do it the  _first_  time.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

_In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes  
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly_

* * *

It was quite a number of hours later when Doc was awoken by an almighty commotion. Rec was howling down the hallway after who he presumed was Magd. She had that effect on people. He was untangling his feet from the legs of the stool he was slumped on – oh, nope, he'd slumped over a bed and twined his legs in to stop everything from sliding out from under him. Only grabbing the bed prevented him from falling over when Magd burst into the room.

Rec stumbled in after her and, seeing the ashen face of Doc and the enraged one from Zenith (albeit still prone on the bed with not a single desire to move, lest he knock his manly bits), moaned in abject terror. "I swear I tried to stop her and she wouldn't listen to me and she  _growled_  at the guards at the door and they let her pass even though she had it!" But Doc was ignoring him.

Bugger the stool, he kicked that under another bed where it clattered onto its side. Magd had one arm looped tightly around a pup, her other pressed against her side. There was a definite limp to her stride, a favouring of her left. Doc took her left elbow and guided her towards a bed, hooking a stepping stool out with his foot so she could climb onto it without releasing the pup from her grasp. As she sat, she looked at him and motioned with her fingers to her mouth, and then to the pup.

"Food?" he asked incredulously. "You want to  _feed_  the thing?" Doc heard Zenith growl from his bed across the room. "Be  _quiet_  or I'll not give you any more anaesthetic." He turned back to his ward, shaking his head. Then  _she_  growled at him and motioned more furiously for food. He didn't even have the first idea what a pup so young  _would_  eat …

"Mam used to have Salkies when we were growing up," Pax said helpfully, resting back on his pillows. "One day the dam just dropped, and so we had an entire litter of pups to look after." Doc's face must have been one of pure relief, because Pax re-adjusted himself on his bed and continued. "If you can get me a bowl with a splash of milk, and a big hand full of that  _delicious_  meat paste stuff, I can help feed it."

Zenith barked. "You can't possibly be suggesting it stays," he ground out.

"If it means she doesn't growl at me again, then yes. You've already turned the poor woman feral and you've only been around for the last day. Now shut up and let me tend to my patient," Doc snapped back. "Need I remind you that I'm your ticket to anaesthetic for that well deserved knee in the balls you received earlier?" He paused for a moment, glowering at the green alien. When the twi'lek kept sensibly quiet, he turned back to Magd.

"Rec, get what Pax needs and make it snappy!" The boy was down the hallway in a heartbeat. "Now, Magd, let's have a look at what you've done to yourself." Doc carefully pulled her shirt up, tucking it under the back legs of the pup pressed to her chest. Now that she was seated, she had dropped her left arm and clutched at the furry thing with her right. Its head was tucked firmly under her chin, eyes squeezed shut, pitiable whimpers coming from its chest. An anaesthetic jab into her neck reduced the pinched look on her face, and the bandages came off easily.

The scab had cracked and was gently oozing blood, but looked very healthy despite its vigorous abuse today. Gentle probing of the area showed tenderness, but no inflammation that could indicate she had done some harm, or that it had become infected. Satisfied that she would be just fine, as long as she didn't go running anywhere any time soon, Doc applied another antiseptic gauze (one can never be too careful) and began to wrap her back up.

Rec announced himself with an out of breath wheeze and a door slamming open. He was carrying two bowls, both of which he took straight to Pax, who hesitated before shoving his hands in. "Er, it'd probably be best if I had something to clean my hands with before  _and_  after this. It gets a bit messy... and possibly a blanket or two for the pup's mess." Rec leaped at the task, grabbing a small box of surgical gloves for Pax, and several spare blankets. Pax gloved up and shoved his hands into the disgusting tubular meat, depositing it into the other bowl and blending it with the milk with his hands.

Wound now re-wrapped, Magd hopped off the table, wrapped both hands around her furry friend, and tottered over to Pax. With all the energy sapped out of her legs, she wobbled a bit, but she made it to sit down on a stool next to Pax's bed. Doc sat down on a nearby stool and watched with great interest as Pax cupped the pup's muzzle and slid a small lump of the now off-grey substance into its mouth. It snorted, surprised, and struggled weakly, its eyes opening and taking in the new environment. It licked its lips and keened.

Magd gloved herself up and, re-securing the spare sheets under the pup's face, began to push food into its eager mouth. With each new morsel it seemed more interested and animated, until finally the bowl was empty and the pup was sated. It gave a little belch and then dropped its head where it lay, exhausted. Its new owner very nearly did the same, but Doc carefully removed her meat-goop covered gloves, bundled the pup into her arms, and guided her out of the door, shooting one more silencing glare at the twi'lek.

"Come on, Magd, let's get you off to bed now."


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

_Did we take it too far, take it too far  
Did we chase the rabbit into wonderland?_

* * *

Incessant keening rowsed her from slumber, bringing with it the sensory awareness to notice the pungent smell of animal urine. Magd groaned and rolled onto her side on her solid mattress, glancing at the little pup half hidden in blankets on the floor. Its liquid brown eyes were open and alert, its little mouth generating a 'feed me' wail.

It was a like a goat crossed with a cow crossed with a dog, of some demented kind. Like someone had just picked body parts and stuck them together to create this little carnivore that was crying on her bedroom floor. Regardless of its dubious heritage, it was hungry, and that stench was  _powerful_. She'd have to sort something out with a tray and some dirt later.

Magd rolled herself to her feet and carefully scooped the pup up. It was time to find food for the  _both_  of them.

The trip to the messhall was blessedly short. Her little room was stationed right beside Doc's, within a short sprint of the infirmary, and food. Or, alternatively, the all necessary coffee, although when it came to coffee Rec was usually the one to ensure the supply.

A squeak of surprise came from Lindey behind the counter, which was quickly replaced with an intense curiousity and a soothing coo as she leaned over the counter to wiggle her finger at the pup in Magd's arms. When the pup began to wriggle and vocalise, the brunette lady looked up at Magd in query, miming putting food into her mouth and pointing at the pup.

"*Yes, please,*" Magd pronounced slowly. She was still getting the hang of the strange English-But-Not language that slipped around the edges of her ears and puzzled her brain. Thinking back to the night before, she said "*meat and milk*" and pointed towards the bowl. Lindey had spent some time with her in the past week, pointing at various foodstuffs they had in stock and naming them. During these educational ventures through the kitchen, she and Lindey had gotten rather good at understanding one others' gestures. It helped when she came down for breakfast, as Doc had a tendency of sleeping in when there was nothing requiring his early attention. Usually, she breakfasted with Rec.

Speaking of Rec … her eyes scanned the people dotted around the tables, most in varying shades of alien-ness, a fact Magd still had a hard time processing and so chose not to. The young man was slumped over a large mug of coffee, staring blankly into the depths of the liquid with the glassy eyed look of one recently conscious but nowhere near awake.

Lindey returned with two bowls, one with tubular meat and the other with milk, and popped them on the serving tray. Next, she dolloped out a large bowl of porridge and drizzled the delicious syrup that reminded Magd of molasses and golden syrup. The large mug of black coffee joined it, and the tray was pushed across the bench for Magd to collect. It took a bit of adjusting the wriggling pup – the budding horns on the sides and backs of its head were a bit awkward to deal with, but she eventually managed to organise herself, the pup, and the tray and waddled off to where Rec was sitting.

Rec blinked and looked at her, still somewhat glazed, when she plonked the tray down next to him and wriggled onto the bench, pup squalling quietly. It could probably smell the meat-like substance. He took a long sip of his coffee and smiled at her before returning to his blank contemplation of the world within his cup. He was, without a doubt, one of the most Absolutely Not Morning people she had ever met, so she left him to his quiet musings.

First order of breakfast was to get some food into the pup to quieten him down. She tipped the meat tube into the bowl with milk and mashed it up with one of the spoons until it was a similar consistency to what Pax had created last night. Then, with a quick re-shuffle of how she was holding it, she fed the noisy pup. It was much more enthusiastic this morning, reaching for the spoon as it returned with food and trying to pull itself towards the bowl that contained the goop. Magd lifted it up onto the table and sat the bowl in front of it and it shoved its face into the off-grey substance to the tune of disgusting slopping.

Magd giggled lightly, spooned her own goop into her mouth – a less disconcerting creamy colour, now that she had mixed the syrup in – and watched the pup eat.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done quite a bit of research in relation to this chapter, but just by way of there being so little information available (and none of it strictly classified as 'canon'), I have taken a liberty as to the exact date of the slow die-off of the language in question.

* * *

_I've never been afraid of the highest heights  
Or afraid of flying_

* * *

The Kath Hound, as Doc had helpfully supplied, was a male, as she had helpfully identified, and had therefore been named Boris. At the surprised, and possibly slightly scandalised exclamations from both Doc and Rec at this pronouncement, Magd had flapped her hands at them and tutted. "Nothing wrong with a name like Boris," she said, despite knowing they couldn't understand her.

Boris seemed to like his name, he certainly responded to it. He was more mobile now, hopping about on his giant feet and stubby legs with great gusto, and often great noise. Especially when he ran into things.

He had been permitted, with some frowning from Doc, to have free reign of the infirmary and so Magd had set up a little corner for him with a bowl of water, a pile of blankets, and his dirt tray. It was too long a walk to take him outside whenever he needed to do his business, so Magd made a trip to deposit used soil and gather fresh soil for the dirt tray in her room and the infirmary every evening.

Boris' feeding was also very regular, and in growing amounts. This was taken with good cheer, as no one actually liked the meat goop, and with Boris eating it, the messhall was less likely to be serving it.

Not only was Boris becoming a fantastic garbage disposal – Lindey in the messhall particularly liked him for this fact, and there were many occasions where the hound was called behind the counter to eat whatever scraps were left over from mealtimes. It made her feel better - "I don't have to throw away quite as much, because some people just don't know how to clear their plates!" Boris was also a fantastic distraction for all those admitted to the infirmary. Nox and Pax had been discharged after several weeks, Pax with the promise of a prosthetic leg once he had healed up well enough and Nox with a threat that if he did any heavy lifting for the next few months, the consequences would be Most Unpleasant. Sofirax remained at the back of the infirmary, and his legs became a common snoozing spot for Boris.

Doc was quite sure the reason for Pax's regular hobbling in was not purely for health reasons, and may have more to do with the delightful young Magd, who appeared to have taken up a permanent employment in the infirmary. Not that Doc was averse to her continued presence, or Boris' to be honest. Quite the contrary, she was very pleasant to be around (despite the language difficulties), as well as very lovely to look at.

He'd always been more interested in looking at women than speaking to them, previously, but now that he had met a woman with beauty  _and_  brains, he found he actually wanted to understand her. The fates must be laughing at him, truly.

It took a while, but Magd's swathes of bandages eventually became a strip-bandage, more to protect the healing scar than to keep it all together, and he had no more opportunity to admire her delightful midrif. He had actually been disappointed when he had pulled out the strip bandage, and she had insisted on placing it herself, but she knew too much for him to be able to continue her substantial bandages.

So life settled into normalcy, or as much normalcy as a hidden resistance base could get. Recon missions came and went, sabotage, acquisition and patrols. Injuries came and went, and every once in a while Doc saw Zenith scan his purple eyes through the infirmary. Rec remained, a constant reminder of Magd's procarious position.

One evening, an acquisition team returned. They'd been sent to appropriate a transporter full of medical supplies, which had been a resounding success. However one of the young lads - this one Doc didn't recognise, he must be another new recruit – had his arms wrapped tightly around the top half of a GE3-series droid, who seemed to be peering around with keen interest at what was happening. The droid was unceremoniously dumped on one of the first beds in the infirmary, and the boy ran out, presumably to assist with the remainder of the unloading.

Zenith appeared. Doc frowned. His frown deepend when Zenith beconed Magd over and leaned on the bed the droid was on.

"Excuse me!" The droid cried. "Would it be terribly difficult to prop me up? Only I would like to see what is happening!" It was a suitable excuse to be in the viscinity of Zenith and Magd, and Doc leaped at it, grabbing a couple more pillows and stuffing them under the neck and shoulders of the droid to elevate it.

"Oh, thank you, kind sir!" it said. "My name is TI-32-GE3, and I am most grateful for the rescue!" One of its arms twitched.

"Droid," the twi'lek growled. "Try to speak with her," he jerked his thumb at Magd, who was inspecting the droid with absolute fascination. Her fingers hovered above its breast-plate, nose inching closer as she examined it more intently.

"Oh, excuse me, madame, you do not speak Basic?" it enquired, turning its face to watch Magd's inspection. She looked up at it, eyes wide and intent.

So not only had she never seen a twi'lek prior to her arrival, but it looked like she had never seen a droid, or at least a human relations protocol droid, before. TI-32-GE3 – now that was a mouthful – rattled off a few enquiries in different languages, each more obscure than the last, until he came to an odd 'clunking' language. Magd took a step back and … burst out laughing. Boris, hearing the commotion, rose from his slumber and started barking.

When she knelt to give Boris a brief reassurance that her guffawing wasn't anything to be concerned about, she murmured in her odd language, casting amused glances at the droid on the bed. Boris thought this was all grand and escalated his barks into happy yelps, until a stern word from her had them petering into silence.

The droid was  _blank_ , Doc noticed in alarm as he returned his attention to it. The eyes were off. Zenith noticed and swore under his breath. One of the droid's arms spazmed and the eyes flickered back to life. It turned to Magd and rattled something off in something that sounded  _similar_  to how Magd spoke. She started, clearly alarmed. The droid said something else, and her blue eyes  _burned_  with intensity. Her voice was rough when she spoke again, an awful gravel that raised the hairs on the back of Doc's neck. Zenith, sensibly, remained silent, deeply hooded eyes flicking between the droid and the woman.

"Oh my," the droid said after a short silence. "This is a very odd language to find, and it is only due to the access I had to some of the best language databases in the galaxy that I know it."

"What is it?" Doc asked, leaning forward.

If droids could look grave and serious, this droid looked it. "It appears to be an early derivative of Old Galactic, which has not been in regular use for at least fourty thousand years."


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

_I don't even care if I know you_   
_Out of our minds_   
_Sad to leave it all behind_   
_We'll be coming back for you one day_

* * *

"Do you comprehend my speech?" it had said. The robot had  _spoken to her_. Her hands shook as she brushed her hair away from her face. After not hearing English spoken for so long, it was a shock to hear it again, and from a robot no less! It had clearly flicked through a few languages before dropping into that language that sounded like a robot humping a washing machine. It had sent her into such giggles she'd needed to soothe Boris.

She opened her mouth. "How do you understand English?" she rasped. She gripped the edges of the bed to stop herself from tipping forwards. It turned away from her to address Doc and Zenith. Who knew what it had said from the startled looks they gave her.

"Where is this place? What language is that?" Magd demanded, leaning forwards.

"Please excuse me, goodwoman, I am a bit rustic in this language," the robot said, its beaded eyes focusing on her.

"What language do they speak? Where is this? Where are we in relation to New Zealand? Earth?" Boris whined at her feet, sensing her distress.

"I do not know Earth. This is Balmorra, in the Nevoota system. Are you from Earth?"

Magd grabbed a stool and sat heavily on it before her knees disappeared from under her. "Yes, I'm from Earth," she said faintly. That impossible thought she had was true. She really was on a different planet, in an entirely different system. Oh in the back of her mind she'd always suspected, but now she had confirmation. She had been here for a few months now without knowing what had happened to the clinic, whether her cats were being fed, if her parents would be searching for her, wondering where she had gone … Her throat tightened. There would be only a small stain of blood on concrete to mark her passage.

Zenith was murmuring something to the robot, while Doc had come around to her side, a mixture of curiosity and concern on his face as he lay a hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his hand and squeezed, desperately needing that solid comfort.

They would probably have had a funeral by now, the empty casket a glaring reminder that she wasn't there. She had never been one for disappearing off and not telling anyone, and after a good three months (or as close as she could estimate, not understanding any calendar system they may have here), they would assume the worst. Especially if they had found her blood stain on the footpath.

She refocused on the robot as it turned to face her.

"The Zenith asks how you came here. He found you in the outside to be eaten by a zeldrate, but he says you have injuries not by zeldrate. How is that?" The robot quirked his head slightly to one side. Magd faced Zenith and let go of Doc's hand. He did not move it from her shoulder.

"I was mugged on the way home from work -"

"Mugged, what is the meaning?" the robot interrupted.

"Attacked by a thief," she said by way of explanation, and waited while the robot relayed this information to the twi'lek. "I didn't realise he had a knife, so I fought back, and he stabbed me." Magd ran a hand over the scar, feeling the lumping of the scar tissue, and the sticking strip over it. Doc's hand squeezed around her shoulder as the robot spoke to them. "I became unconscious, and woke to that lizard attempting to eat me." She looked Zenith in the eye and leaned forwards. "Thank you for saving my life, even if you did attempt to 'interrogate' me afterwards. Which you may continue, now that we have a translator."

The twi'lek's eyebrows rose ever so slightly and the muscles in his face relaxed nigh imperceptibly. Magd mentally snorted. She must be getting used to his crazy face if she could notice things like that. She sat up and gave Doc what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'm okay now, I just had a bit of a shock," she said as she patted his hand. The robot translated, and Doc beamed down at her.

"He says that it is good that you can now speak with him," the robot translated.

"It's good to be understood, and to understand," she replied.

The robot turned away as Zenith addressed it. They had a brief conversation before the robot returned its attention to her.

"The Zenith asks where do you come from."

Magd pursed her lips and frowned. "This is the part I am having difficulty understanding. I come from a planet called Earth in … I don't think we ever really named our solar system. The closest other system is Alpha Centauri, in the Milky Way Galaxy, have you heard of it?" The robot almost looked apologetic as he translated for Zenith.

"There are zero records of a system named Alpha Centauri, or a galaxy named Milky Way," it said. Magd took a shuddering breath.

She'd managed to jump so many galaxies away from home they hadn't even explored that far, and this was a highly technologically advanced culture. The gadgets and gizmos she had encountered in this backwards rebel base were phenomenal, years beyond the current abilities of the greatest innovators on earth and currently relegated to the realm of science fiction.

But here they were things that had been cobbled together and scavenged for. The technology that must be in the greater cities, the big populations, must be very impressive indeed. The fact of space flight was just a given. It would be very difficult for so many humanoid species to evolve on the same planet, and she had counted four so far, not including the humans. Even on the very remote chance of such dramatic evolutionary differences on a single planet, the technology itself  _screamed_  'space flight has been achieved'.

But this jump had been made by being  _stabbed_ , without being beamed up to a fancy space ship, or any kind time or relative dimension machine. She rubbed a hand across her face and sighed. "I guess I'm from a galaxy far, far away."


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

_Gonna rise, gonna fall, getting pulled apart_   
_And we all do it all cause it stole our hearts_

* * *

There was a flurry of discussion between Zenith and TI-32-GE3 to the effect of "she appears quite shaken by this happenstance" from the droid and "how can she prove she's from this system?" from Zenith. Doc, in the meantime, was looking at his friend in a very new light. He believed her. Force save him, he believed her. The way her body had shook under his hand on her shoulder, the way she tightened her fingers around him... Not only that, but it was really the only thing that made sense.

He had tried, under request, to use every trick in the book to get Magd to talk Basic, and every trick in the book fell flat on its face. Even waking her up part way through the night with a medical emergency did nothing. She remained as unable to understand him as ever, excepting a few words she had picked up during her time in the infirmary. He had quietly reported that nothing had worked, and that, in his medical opinion, she did not know Basic. The droid had confirmed that by identifying the language she did, in fact, speak.

Old Galactic. The language that birthed Galactic Basic. Origin unknown.

There were theories, of course, but forty thousand years is long enough to forget things, to lose important records that could confirm or deny those theories. The origin of humans was also shrouded in uncertainty and speculation. It had been suggested several times that Old Galactic had been the native language of humans, before the necessity of speaking with so many different species had won out and the language morphed according to demand.

Then there was her appearance. He'd seen a lot of her body, given the necessity to undress her to her chest-band to bind her up, and the continued re-bandaging … and that one time he'd thrown the door open on his way to the infirmary to her in her nightshift, which consisted of an over large top, with her delightful legs on display. She was soft and creamy in delicate curves, with the most expressive grey-blue eyes he had ever witnessed. It contrasted dramatically with her dark curls. There was something familiar but otherworldly about the tilt of her eyes and the curve of her lips.

It all made sense, if you didn't take into account that it didn't make any sense at all.

"She says she doesn't know the mechanism through which she was brought here, although she would like to know, as she would like to be able to return home," the droid said after a brief conversation with Magd.

Doc's curiosity suddenly fled. Home. Of course she would have a home, with friends and family, and a husband perhaps. She was old enough to have one, and certainly lovely enough.

"She says that Earth has only achieved space flight in the last hundred years, and has just landed another exploratory robot on another planet in their solar system. She says that another exploratory unmanned space craft has left their solar system." The droid turned back to Magd as she continued speaking. "They appear very technologically inferior. She says their robotics are not near advanced as I." It sounded very proud.

That would also be logical. If an early ofshoot of humanity were to keep themselves isolated from the galaxy, they would have had to destroy all knowledge of space flight. A thirty thousand year gap would have required a recession to the basest of living – human's inquisitive nature would have them catching up in a few thousand years if there had been any creature comforts.

But none of that explained how she got from  _there_  to  _here_. Granted, while living in a rebellion camp on back water Balmorra probably put him out of the loop on all things related to technological advances, Doc imagined they'd have heard through intel if anyone had created something that could transport people from one galaxy to another. If their technology was not up to doing it, he sincerely doubted a planet incapable of spaceflight could create one, even by accident.

"That doesn't explain how she got here," Zenith growled. "She claims they don't have the technology, I  _know_  we don't have that technology. She's lying about the technology, or she's lying about how she got here."

"I don't think she's lying about either," Doc snapped back. "She speaks _Old damn Galactic_ , unless she's also hotwired the droid to lie for her, and you  _know_  she doesn't speak Galactic Basic." Zenith's glower got deeper.

"Then explain it to me, since you clearly know what's happening."

"I don't know what's happening, but I do know what's  _not_  happening," Doc replied. "What's  _not_  happening is she her being a blasted Imperial. And she's not from Balmorra! I have serious doubts she's even from this galaxy." He was met with silence and a considering glower.

TI-32-GE3 took advantage of the silence, speaking again to Magd. Doc watched in alarm as her eyes lost their intensity and misted over, her face crumpling into a grim acceptance. She responded with a query which, upon being answered, made her head drop forward and her shoulders curl with defeat.

Doc leaped forwards and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Boris yowled at the sudden activity, and TI-32-GE3 bumbled through apologies. Zenith's brows rose in surprise.

Her hands came up to cover her face, and Magdalena wept.


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

_Give me release_   
_Let the waves of time and space surround me_

* * *

The next day saw Magdalena much improved. When Doc arrived at the infirmary, he found her already with a small toolbox, investigating TI-32-GE3's arms. Rec had already brought two large mugs of coffee, one resting on the trolley Magd had appropriated, the other on Doc's customary desk. Magd was chatting animatedly to the droid while prodding the bared wires in its shoulders with a fine screw driver. Boris looked up from his bed and whuffed a greeting before flopping back down.

"Good morning!" she said, her face breaking into a wide grin. He stared at her for a moment – one of the phrases he had  _never_  taught her was 'good morning'. The most he could cope with was a grunt pre-caffeine, and she was usually the same.

"I am teaching her how to speak Basic!" TI-32-GE3 helpfully supplied.

"I can see that. Maybe teach her how to say 'I can't function before coffee'?" he quirked a smile at Magd who, when the droid translated, laughed and nodded.

"She says she will let you wake up with your coffee, as she has woken up with hers," the droid relayed as Magd giggled again, taking a sip of her own dark liquid. She gave him a positively fiendish grin before picking up another screw driver and getting back to work on TI-32-GE3. A flurry of discussion followed as Magd dug out two ended wires and taped them with a small clip of surgical tape.

Doc collected his coffee mug and took a long gulp of the bitter liquid. It settled in his stomach and slowly but surely life flowed into his limbs as the sweet, sweet caffeine entered his bloodstream. As his body slowly regained life, he tottered over to Magd's workstation and observed her, taking frequent sips of the bitter black liquid in his mug.

"How are the repairs coming along?" he enquired of the droid.

"Admirably well! We are preparing the wires in my arm for repair, and we have already decided to place a cap over my legs to protect the wiring in the interim, until such a time as suitable replacements have been located," it explained.

"Good, good." Doc took another long sip of his coffee. "Could you ask Magdalena how she is doing?"

"Certainly, sir," it replied. It jerked its head to face the woman digging into its shoulder and rattled off what sounded like a query. Magd looked up from the wires she was digging through and smiled at him. After a moment of speaking, the droid intoned: "she says she's doing better, now, although she misses her cats and her family."

"That's understandable. Could you ask her … what her home was like? Where she learned her surgery?" Doc planted his backside on a stool from under the bed opposite the droid. His positioning may have been influenced by the fine view of the woman's backside it afforded him as she leaned over the droid.

When his question was translated for her, she put her screwdriver down and turned to face him, something that would have been disappointing if it weren't for the new and equally fine view he now got of her breasts. Those standard-issue shirts were good for something, at least.

"She says she is a veterinarian," the droid said. "She learned her skills at a ..." there was a pause while TI-32-GE3 sought clarification. "From the University of * _Sydney_ * over a period of six years. She then ran a small practice for cats in a city called Auckland." Doc leaned forward, taking a sip of coffee.

"She says her city is very beautiful, with big hills covered in forests, and beaches nearby. The island – oh, my apologies,  _series_  of islands – is called New Zeeland, which she says is the most beautiful place on their planet." There was a pause. "She says you can drive for two days and pass open pasture, forests, mountains and glaciers. That does sound quite lovely."

It sounded like heaven, really.

And so she told him, through TI-32-GE3 about her home – her parents, who had both emigrated to the island she lived on prior to her birth; her little two bedroom cottage with its equally small back yard; her two cats, at which point her eyes misted and she smiled a sad little curve and fell into silence.

When she spoke again it was about the islands she lived on, and the people that inhabited it. She told him of trees twenty times taller than he, perched on hillsides and reaching into the wind and the sun, with violent crimson flowers, and how after a storm the roads beneath would be slick from the fallen petals. She told him of archaic lizards and flight-less birds, white-sanded beaches and forests where the only dangerous thing was the tree branches you might hit your head on.

All the while she rubbed her thumb across her finger tips, a whistful expression on her face.

"*I'd like to go home*", she had said, the words starting to make sense with the droid translating them. "*But I don't know how to get there.*" She sighed and dropped her hands to her thighs.

"There are many more intelligent people in this galaxy, with vast quantities of information I can't even imagine," Doc said as he pressed his hand to her shoulder. Her own hand reached up to cover his. "I'm sure one of them could help you find your way home." She smiled when the droid translated for her.

"But first, we'll have to get you off this rock."


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

_So raise your glass if you are wrong_   
_In all the right ways_

* * *

It took a week, but Magd eventually got TI, as she now called the droid, in more-or-less one piece. His arms were fully operational again, and the holes for his legs had been boarded up with scrap metal. Rec had even come up with an ingenious bag that would allow Magd to carry TI around on her back with minimal difficulties. This meant that, instead of having to return to the infirmary to be able to converse with people, she could do it wherever she was.

It was during this time that she learned of a small door which led up a set of narrow stairs to the roof of their little compound. A matter of hours after learning of this, she opened the door, TI strapped to her back and Boris whuffing along in her wake, and ascended.

Her not-quite-always-so-present-guard, Rec, had taken to eating his lunch with his friends when he knew she would be in the infirmary. With Doc around, and with patients coming through with everything from mild headaches to missing limbs, she was usually kept busy. Not today. Doc had mumbled something about Chemish being a poor choice for a drinking partner, something evidenced by his sunken and bloodshot eyes, and by his inability to keep his head above his desk. She had left him snoring into his desk in an empty infirmary.

For all the wonders of the place, for all the people within it, Magd didn't have anywhere she could retreat to, a quiet place for just her and Boris where she could listen to the sound of her own breathing and not have to deal with  _people_. Or aliens. Or whatever the politically correct definition for this motley crew was. A peaceful retreat, like the sun room she had installed at her house shortly after she'd moved in. With the windows cocked open and a cup of coffee, Magd would laze in her hammock and her two cats would find the choicest sun spots on the multi-level cat post beside her. They would spend most of their weekends thusly, her engrossed in a good book, them engrossed in following their chosen patch of sun until it petered out of existence.

But here, with her tiny cubicle and uniformed shadow, there was nowhere to escape the ever present  _people_. Then she opened the door at the top of the stairs and took a step out into the sun.

The world was flat, as far as the eye could see but for the rocks clawing their way to the skies. The skies were blue, smothered by foul clouds and a smog that reduced the horizon. The air was less stale, but equally dense in the open, even with the slight breeze at her vantage point.

Boris yelped with excitement and hopped at her heels, looking up at her with limpid eyes. He now well cleared her knee in height, with still a long way to grow. Fortunately for both of them, he – or more likely his species – was highly intelligent and malleable. Magd flicked her fingers in dismissal and the happy kath hound whooped off down the roof, investigating every point at which metal roofing met with with rock, shoving his nose into every crevasse he could locate.

Magd unstrapped her backpack and deposited TI on the ground, propped up so he could see the view, then dropped to her backside and stretched her feet out in front of her. She stared at her boots for some time. They were standard issue, some kind of leather-like material over stiff rubber soles in a thoroughly practical beige. They strapped over the ankle, with her grey pants tucked into the tops of them. Something she would never have owned, let alone wore.

Her eyes glazed and lifted to the false horizon of fog. Since she arrived in this strange backwards, forwards, upside down place she hadn't really allowed herself to think. Even when TI had told her she was stuck here, when she'd cried because it was all just too much to take in, she hadn't really let herself take it in. Her brain had gone into survival mode – cope with the now and what you do know and don't even consider what you don't understand.

Like the aliens. Actual sentient life in an entirely separate species! Still humanoid in shape and movement, which led to the contemplation of a common ancestor – although why one species would populate so many different planets and go through the millions of years of adapting to the environment to evolve into something with a similar base structure but wholly different features was beyond her – or that these species evolved with no genetic input from one another, in perfect parallel, and still came out with a similar base structure.

She shook her head and threw herself backwards so she lay on the roof and stared up at the sky, hands behind her head as cushions. She was no evolutionary biologist. It only hurt her brain and raised more questions than she wanted to answer. She closed her eyes and took a long breath, forcing the tightly wound muscles in her body to relax, one at a time.

With the happy whuffs of Boris fading into the background and the quiet whooshing of the wind cresting the roof and whistling around the rocks, Magd found it surprisingly easy to relax. The tension unwound from her lower spine and her shoulders oozed into the metal beneath her. The sun warming her face was entirely pleasant, and before long her head was filled with music.

Here, with a peace she hadn't felt in months trickling into her skin, she could let her brain unwind and her mind fly. A familiar tune echoes in her brain.  _We're only young and naïve still, we require certain skills_. A song she hadn't remembered in a while, an old favourite, one that reminded her of heady summer days and running screaming into the ocean waves.  _The mood it changes like the wind, hard to control when it begins._  Memories from what felt like a life time ago.

 _The bittersweet between my teeth, trying to find the in-betweens_.  _Fall back in love eventually, yeah yeah …_  How many months had she been here already? Long enough for Boris to grow from a gangly pup to a much bigger, but no more coordinated pup. Long enough to almost feel at home.

 _Can't help myself but count the flaws, claw my way out through these walls_. She frowned when a cloud moved to block out the sun, dimming the light entering her eyelids. She scrunched her face up in a grimace when she heard the crunch of boots beside her ear. She opened her eyes.

Purple irises glared down at her. Her face broke into a sheepish smile. She sat up and spun around to face him, legs pulled up to her chest. The grumpy twi'lek barked at TI, who eeped in surprise and twisted his head.

"Oh my, the Zenith asks what you are doing up here," the droid said.

"I'm not trying to run away, if that's what he's implying," Magd replied, frowning right back at Zenith. His arms were folded across his chest, his stance braced. "I just need a bit of peace and quiet." His response to TI's explanation was a non-committal grunt, and she was struck with the thought that he'd likely be up here for the same reason as her. Rec probably still hadn't finished lunch, and Doc would be sleeping for a good hour or two more, so no one would have raised an alarm, so he certainly wouldn't be up here on account of retrieving her. For a horrible moment, she felt guilty for invading this man's – alien's – quiet place.

He turned to leave and she reached out and grabbed his leg, snagging the loose material in his pants. He stopped and looked down at her hand, his expression dark and unreadable. She whipped her hand back. "I'm sorry, please don't go? I'm very quiet, and you won't notice me here." TI spoke for a moment, and with another non-committal grunt, Zenith stalked off the roof and back down the stairs.


	15. Chapter 15

* * *

_So raise your glass if you are wrong_   
_In all the right ways_

* * *

After about five minutes and still no sign of Zenith, Rec, or anyone else barging through the door to the roof, Magd swung herself back around and lay back down. The heels of her boots sat a few inches from the edge. It wasn't as if Zenith had any problems getting his hands dirty, so why hadn't he dragged her off the rooftop? Unless he figured she'd either have to go back through the base, or break both legs dropping several metres to the sod below. Right now she wanted to do neither of those things.

She refused to think about the things she did want.

When she returned to the roof a few days later, she spotted Zenith sitting, his legs dangling over the edge. She quietly closed the door and left him in peace. She pressed her fingers to her lips when Boris opened his mouth to whine. The kath hound shut his jaw with a snap and tottered down the stairs after her.

It was a week before she returned to the rooftop, and this time she didn't leave when she found Zenith there. Nor did he. Instead, she sat and dangled her feet over the edge of the compound. TI was propped up on his arms and seemed quite content to stare into space, contemplating something droids contemplate. Boris made a cursory sniff of Zenith before galumphing off to inspect the scents and sounds of the roof and rock.

Magd was keenly aware of the alien's presence. It was setting her shoulders on edge. But as the wind danced around her feet in the open air, and his peaceful silence continued, she forgot all about the world.

She awoke with a start to TI's crackling voice. She hadn't realised she'd fallen asleep. Sitting up and scrubbing her eyes, she asked TI to repeat what he'd said. Boris was lying, stretched out against Zenith's legs, his tongue lolling out and paws waving in the air.

"Zenith has asked if you are settling in well enough," TI said. Magd blinked. This was a somewhat alarming about turn.

"I suppose I am. Why does he ask?" she replied, wary.

"He says because he expects you will be staying on for some time. The Doctor has expressed his desire to have you as a permanent assistant." This wasn't exactly news to her, Doc had been extolling her virtues left, right and centre – some she felt were entirely undeserved. The amount of work he had after reconnaissance missions, or appropriation missions, far outstripped his capacity. Having someone who had a vague idea of what they were doing was a damn sight better than no one at all.

She suspected all of his motives weren't quite as pure as that, but she didn't consider that too deeply.

"I'd be delighted to assist in any way I can," she said. The twi'lek nodded in response. She figured this was as close to an admission that she wasn't a spy as she was going to get, and took it as such.

Rec barged through the door to the rooftop, dishevelled and yelling. Boris leaped up in alarm and began to bark. TI raised his arms in surprise and toppled forwards. Magd hurled herself backwards and away from the edge of the building, scampering to her feet and grabbing Boris by the scruff before he could gore Rec on one of his horns.

"You're needed in the medical bay immediately!" TI translated. Zenith was already on his feet and through the door, pelting down the stairs. Magd let Boris go after him while Rec scooped up TI and followed them down the stairs.

"What's happening?" she asked the droid.

"Rec says there is a man in the medical bay who is very injured, and that he brought in another man who is highly volatile and has had to be restrained," TI replied, once Rec had explained. "The injured man has some vital information about one of the Resistance Outposts in Gorinth Canyon. The Doctor wants your opinion on the aggressive man, he does not think this is 'normal' aggression."

The door to the ward was open and guarded by three men with large guns, shrieking profanities spilling from the room. Doc roared something and the profanities became muffled howls.

The surgical table immediately in front of the door was covered in blood and occupied. Red liquid dribbled to the floor from the gurney. Doc was already scrubbed and gloved up and wielding the injector.

"Boris, station!" Magd commanded and the obedient kath hound, who had just been about to investigate the injured man, ran to his bed beside Doc's desk and sat down, eyes watching the commotion and muscles bunched in eagerness. Hound contained, Magd ran to the sink to wipe down and glove up.

"Skin avulsion, most to subcutaneous, across the arms and the chest," TI explained as Doc began to speak. "It appears he was able to protect his head and neck rather well, to the detriment of his arms. Considerable loss of blood. Tachycardia, elevated respiration."

"Sedatives?" Magd asked, approaching the table. Chunks of skin were hanging off the man's arms in bite-sized clumps, while other bits were entirely missing, baring the muscular structure below. His chest had been scratched to shreds. His shirt torn off to the waist. One particularly nasty slice went across his stomach, below his navel, flapping open to show pink flesh.

"Administered a moment ago. The screaming man got loose just as they approached the front door and did this damage in the few seconds it took pull him off." Doc's face was grim as he applied an atomised antibacterial spray. Magd grabbed the oxygen canister and hauled it over to the bed. A moment later, the man was fitted with a mask. Magd held her fingers to his neck to monitor his pulse.

"TI, call twenty seconds." She'd discovered the droid's impeccable ability to keep time purely by accident, and it had become a fiendishly useful function since. At the minute mark, Magd pursed her lips. "Heart rate one ten, respiratory rate still high. How is the bleeding?"

Doc's gloves were red. He had two soldiers, their hands gloved, holding the man's arms in the air to reduce blood flow to the open wounds. There was too much trauma to the skin to apply a tourniquet. Doc himself was putting most of his body weight onto a particularly deep patch of missing skin on the man's chest.

"Slowing. It doesn't appear he has any internal injuries, and no broken bones."

Boris whined from his corner.

"TI, another twenty please." The droid obliged. "Down to one oh five. Respiration rate reducing. Steady reduction. Thready pulse."

Doc carefully peeled off the gauze he was using as a compress. "Keep that oxygen on him. We'll hold off for a few more minutes then gauze him up. Fluids once he's stabilised for a while – the last thing we want is to over saturate him and pop a clot. I'll show you how to rig up the injector as a drip." The blood saturated gloves and gauze were thrown into the bin and replaced with fresh ones, which he used to grab the injector and an antibiotic canister. This, he injected into undamaged skin behind the man's ear.

"Heart beat still reducing, at nine nine. Respiration almost normal." Magd relaxed her vice grip on the gas mask, but kept it pressed to the man's face. While they weren't quite out of the woods yet – he could still crash, despite the steady stabilisation – the man was no longer at risk of severe hypovolemic shock.

Doc grabbed a pack of gauze and several rolls of all-purpose bandages. With the efficiency of someone who could do this in his sleep, he put the gauze compresses on the worst of the damage first, then applied the gauze to the remainder of the traumatised skin, using small bits of tape where possible to secure the gauze better than the bandages could. Once completed, he began the process of wrapping up both of the man's arms. The stomach and chest would remain unwrapped, purely because lifting the man would be extremely awkward. The taped gauze compresses would suffice.

Freed from holding the arms up, the two soldiers threw off their gloves and made to leave. A barking command from Doc had them scuttling back, pale faced and concerned.

"The Doctor has just told them they cannot leave, as the ward is under quarantine until diagnosis of the other man," TI said. Magdalena nodded. The muffled screams from the back corner of the room hadn't let up since she entered. She glanced over to see five resistance soldiers guarding a red soaked man, hogtied and taped and fighting his restraints. Blood dribbled down his chin. A rag had been shoved in his mouth and tied around his head to quieten him.

"Who is he?" she asked, sidling up to Doc.

"He's one of our technicians from a research and intel outpost in the canyons. He's usually a very mild mannered person," Doc replied. His face was a picture of determined professionalism. "Certainly not the type to attempt to rip someone limb from limb."

One of the guards now on monitoring duty, his gloved hand pressed against the man's neck to monitor his pulse, they were free to tend to the screamer.

Rec was comforting Boris – or he was being comforted by Boris, she didn't blame him either way. Zenith was standing in front of the man, glaring fit to strip the secrets from his brain. The guards were white faced and shaken. Doc fitted a sedative into the injector and shoved it against the man's arm. The man tried to twist and bite doc, but Zenith's hand grabbed his hair and jerked his head away. They growled at one another, and Magd wasn't sure which sound chilled her more.

"This should only take a few moments to work," Doc said, throwing the empty capsule away. "Once he's out, I've got a few blood tests we can run to rule out obvious infectious diseases." Magdalena started.

"You have infectious diseases that present like  _this_?" she asked, waving an arm in the direction of the dribbling and bound man. His eyes followed her hand like a caffeine addicts' would follow a cup of coffee.

"Not off the top of my head, no." Doc's lips quirked downwards as he watched the man.

"Could he have been drugged then?" she asked. "He's not responding to the sedatives at all." Doc's frown became more pronounced.

"That's a possibility, but I haven't heard of anything that could produce this kind of effect." He snorted as he clipped another sedative cartridge into the injector. "Not that I'd have heard anything in the past while." He jabbed the man again, once more with Zenith holding the head back by his hair, and stepped back. His arms crossed his chest. "If that doesn't knock him out we'll have to consider that option."

"Only reason I ask is we recently had a situation where a man on drugs ran naked through a city and ate a guy's face off." It was Doc's turn to look startled. "There were a few more incidents, all of them horrifically violent." She shrugged. "What can I say? People will take anything for an altered state."

After another five minutes and still no discernible effect from the sedatives, Doc was ready to admit it may well be drugs.

"We need to determine how it was administered," Doc said finally. It was with some morbid amusement that Magdalena pointed out the man's nose had started bleeding. His eyebrow hitched upwards in response. "If it's really that convenient, I'm going to laugh." Zenith now restraining both sides of the man's head in what could only be a painful grip, Doc got close enough to look up the man's nose. The raw and stripped mucous membrane within the nostrils were glaringly obvious. Doc pulled back and laughed. Magd grinned.

"We know it's an inhalable substance, it's a psychoactive stimulant, and it's in large enough quantities to induce violent paranoia in someone who has no history of this." Doc tapped a finger to his lip, pondering.

"If it's anything like the drugs we had difficulties with, this could last anywhere between three to six days. Sedatives don't affect it. We don't know how long ago he inhaled this substance, either," Magd said.

"Then it would make sense to have him detained until he recovers," Zenith stated. A ill-boding grin flashed. "I know exactly where to put him." Magdalena shuddered, remembering the dank room with the metal board and the restrains.

"We still haven't ruled out some kind of obscure infectious disease, or a manufactured virus," Doc warned. "Quarantine is still in place for this ward." Zenith nodded. The last thing the resistance needed was to be devoured from the inside out – literally as well as figuratively.

The door to the ward was shoved open at the same moment Doc yelled at it. A badly scarred woman stood in the doorway, yelling right back and gesturing wildly. Zenith joined in, followed by Boris. A brief moment of silence followed before the woman slammed the door shut and stalked off. Magdalena looked to TI.

"It appears the outpost that man came from is transmitting uncoded data to the Imperials." The droid managed to sound as grave as the men in the room looked.


	16. Chapter 16

* * *

_But you live to live on one more day_   
_'Cause you're a survivor_

* * *

"Do you have any blood tests we can run? Anything we can use to track brain edema or other inflammation?" Magd asked. The lightbulb clicked on just as Doc met her eyes. "The scanner!" she yelled and went zooming through the rows of beds to the cupboard it was kept in, Doc hot on her heels. They both hurled open the cupboard doors and placed their hands on the scanner. Magd grizzled at him but let him take it – it  _was_  his after all. He flashed her a breathless grin before darting back to the bound man.

"I can't think of any infectious diseases we could test for in the lab that could even remotely have these symptoms," Doc said as he turned the scanner on and held it up to the snarling man. "Zenith, if you would be so kind as to hold his head still?" The twi'lek smiled humourlessly and gripped the man's head between his hands. Bruises were already beginning to form from where his fingers had pressed previously. If he survived, he would be black and blue.

A quick scan over the brain revealed nothing, no tumours, no swelling, zip. The brain stem was identical. The scanner continued down through his chest cavity, showing no fluid on the lungs, no inflammation of the heart … nothing. Not so much as an inflamed joint.

"Well, I'm out of ideas," Magd said with a sigh. Doc nodded in agreement and put the scanner down well away from the man. "So we're under quarantine for the next day or two?" Doc nodded again.

"Until we know what we're dealing with – if it's inhalable, it could be microbial, bacterial or viral in nature. I met a really nasty brain-eating fungal spore on a moon of one of the inner rim planets." He shuddered. "Came off a sponge someone decided to touch. It's definitely not that, it kills in a matter of hours." Magd looked at him with wide-eyed horror. "But that's why we're in quarantine."

Magd nodded and walked back to the unconscious man. She waved off the soldier, who gratefully relinquished his monitoring fingers on the man's pulse. She took over herself, relieved to see he was safely down to 70 per minute. A bit high, considering the fitness level he appeared to be in, but within acceptable parameters.

"Still looking good over here," Doc said, waggling his eyebrows at Magd as moved to check the unconscious man. "He'll pull through fine without fluids." He patted her on the shoulder and moved off to return the scanner to its cupboard. "All we can do now is wait." Doc made a pointed look at Zenith, who had taken up a position beside the prisoner, arms crossed and deep set glower.

Magd went over to where Rec and Boris were huddled on Boris' bed and sat down on the other side of the hound, one arm slinging over his wide back. She opened her mouth to say something comforting to the younger man, but closed it. Having TI translate it for all to hear would be embarrassing, despite her intentions. She settled for patting him on the shoulder, and he gave her a wobbling smile.

Doc wandered over to the two guards who were leaning on either side of the closed door. "Next time someone opens that door, make sure they're bringing coffee," he said mildly. Both men nodded and he spun back, making a beeline for his desk, hiding behind his paperwork.

Rec watched his feet with intent. The guards on the door resolutely avoided everyone's eyes. Even Doc was hiding. Magd ruffled Boris' fledgling mane in the silence. Several minutes passed.

"I spy," she began, her voice dropping into the quiet. "With my little eye, something beginning with *t*."


	17. Chapter 17

* * *

_So wake me up when it's all over_   
_When I'm wiser and I'm older_   
_All this time I was finding myself_   
_And I didn't know I was lost_

* * *

Doc was surprised when, out of the silence, Zenith snorted. "TI-32-GE3," he replied. Magdalena beamed at him and motioned for him to continue the game. He snorted again but remained silent. After a moment, Rec cleared his throat.

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'g'." He ducked his head at the incredulous looks from the guards.

"Gurney!" Magd responded, pointing at one. Her grin widened and TI translated her next challenge. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'b'."

The guard on the door coughed out "bag", almost before he could help himself. Magd smiled and shook her head. The other door guard looked around the room for a moment before guessing "bench", at which point Magdalena nodded vigorously and motioned for him to state his challenge.

And just like that, Magd drew everyone in the room into a childish game, designed to pass the time and occupy the mind. Doc shook his head in amazement when Zenith guessed one answer and deigned to issue his own challenge (H4B vial, and it took them a long time to guess that one).

There was a pause in the game when coffee arrived, long enough for everyone who wanted a cup to acquire a cup and take a refreshing sip. Doc took two. He was fine with drinking cold coffee. It was  _caffeine_.

But, of course, 'I Spy' could only occupy adults for so long. Particularly adults trapped inside a medical ward. The game had done its job – it had relaxed everyone enough to perch on stools, or sit on beds, or, in Rec's case, slump on some pillows on the floor. The guards at the door were quietly discussing the best way to dispatch a mutated colicoid when the door was kicked open, damn nearly off its hinges.

Zenith was on his feet and caught his rifle as Chemish threw it at him. "Evacuate. Grey Star has been killed, the base has been compromised. Give us five to clear out. Rendezvous in a week if you're still alive." The door slammed with finality.

The guards were making hasty assessments of what they had on them. Doc was already up and pulling bags out from under cupboards where he had stored them. Rec leapt to attention, face white, while Magd looked at them all in abject confusion. TI said something to her and she clambered to her own feet, rushing over to assist Doc.

A quiet  _pvvt_  and a sickening thunk made Doc turn around in time to see the gagged man slide backwards, the wall now splattered with brains. "Could you at least have done that _last_?" he demanded of Zenith. The twi'lek gave him a withering glare and slung his rifle back over his shoulder. Magd muttered something under her breath, some of which Doc identified as her swearing.

"You two!" Doc barked at the guards now milling around the dead body. "Put these on." He pointed at two large packs, stuffed to the brim with medical supplies. He shrugged into his own, before handing another pack to Rec and Magd. The guards obediently clipped themselves in.

"We move out in two." Zenith had cracked the door open, pressing his ear up to the small gap. "You two are with me." The guards stationed by the door fell in line. "Take exit C2, we'll meet you at the ward evac point."

Like the well trained militiamen they were, the twi'lek and two guards slipped out the door and down the hallway. Doc grabbed a small handgun from his desk, pocketed a few extra rounds of ammo – refused to notice how Magdalena was looking at him with surprised eyes – and strapped his patient onto the gurney.

The evacuation plan had been thorough – had to be, in order to minimise losses. Each troop and department had a designated exit and separate evac location. If evacuation was successful and they had not been followed, they would remain at their evac spot for two to three days before continuing to their designated rendezvous point. From there, they would stay with their new 'group' until contact was established with the other rendezvous locations and the situation was fully analysed.

If there was pursuit, each department and troop had an individual 'evac route' until pursuit was lost. Then they would remain at the next evac point along the route before continuing to their rendezvous point.

It was harder to destroy a full cell when they scattered into organised chaos. It didn't make Doc feel any better.

One laden guard took point, the other guarded the rear, while Boris near glued himself to Magd's legs. TI was strapped to her front – she adamantly refused to leave the droid behind, much to its relief – and made her quite ungainly, so it was up to Rec and Doc to guide the gurney down the narrow hallways to Exit C2.

The medical ward had its own exit, hidden behind a false wall, that tunnelled through the back of the base and into the rock. Theirs was the safest route, the easiest, and the least known. The guards pulled the wall away and waited for everyone to pile in before closing up behind them and turning their rifle-mounted lights on. Once again, one took point and the other guarded the rear.

Their footfalls bounced against the solid rock around them, the  _click click_  of the gurney wheels beating a staccato rhythm. The end of the tunnel was low enough that Doc had to lower the gurney to push his patient out, and everyone had to duck,  _carefully_. Luck was with them, as they all made it out without disturbing the rocks or foliage to a noticeable degree.

Here, they began to sprint. It was a short run over open ground to the first rocky outcrops in the hop. This was the biggest risk. This was where they'd be spotted.

But no shots were heard as the shadows and stone encased them. Only their noise, their ratty breathing and footsteps and groaning straps. The gurney's wheels ticking over. Even TI was dead silent as they wound their way under, between and around jagged rocks and boulders and toppled monoliths.

It was a gruelling four hours later when they finally stopped. Their patient hadn't regained consciousness – a matter of some concern, especially as they were now far from his well stocked cupboards.

Just as worryingly was the way Magd was listing. Her legs folded under her in the sudden and graceless way of those pushed beyond their endurance, and it was only the pack on her back and TI on her front that kept her from slumping fully to the ground. A quick inspection of his patient – no fever, pulse rate within acceptable levels, breathing even and steady – and he was at her side, unstrapping TI and throwing an arm across her shoulders to support her as the droid slid to the ground and pulled himself up with his arms.

"Pass me a drink pack." Doc thrust his hand out, fingers closing around the squishy packet that was placed there. He tore it open with his teeth, did a swap around with supporting arms, and held it to her lips. Her own fingers came up to grasp it and within a few vigorous slurps, the drink packet was empty. It was, more or less, 'emergency rations', designed for quick re-hydration with a shot of glucose and a large dose of protein. His own drink packs had an added shot of caffeine. Those ones were much rarer to acquire during raids, and he hoarded his supply jealously.

Although for Magd, he'd share. When she needed the caffeine.

Colour picked back up in her cheeks and her eyes lost the dazed look of the exhausted. Around them, the guards were assessing the cave. It wouldn't do to be caught out by nesting dragonbats, or a group of wingmaws. Luck, however, was still gracing them. The cave was empty of life, and all of the carefully hidden interfaces were fully operational. By the time the packs were down and stowed away and guards posted at the entrance, Magd had regained most of her normal vivacity.

"Doc," Rec called from the entrance over the grunted swearing of what  _sounded_  like Zenith. "We've got wounded incoming."


	18. Chapter 18

* * *

_But we have learned to build our walls_   
_So very strong and very tall_   
_For fear of what the world might steal_

* * *

Magd shoved the pack from her shoulders, opening it to inspect its contents. Her pack was filled almost exclusively with tightly packed antiseptic gauze. Doc rushed past her to the bags deeper in the cave, hauling two over his shoulders and returning to her side. They opened to show the injector and all the vials he could fit. She flashed a grin at him, more teeth baring than any actual smile, and he responded in kind. Together, they stood and went to the entrance of the cave to await the injured.

The first to arrive was one of the guards Zenith had left with, carrying another slumped over his shoulders. A blaster had gone clean through the right side of his torso and his left thigh. Doc motioned for the man to be placed beside their bags and immediately set to work staunching the blood flow. Another few men trailed in, none that Magdalena recognised, and none looking seriously injured. One had a cut above his right eye that was dribbling blood down his chin and another with what appeared to be a sprained ankle. Zenith brought up the rear, purple eyes sweeping the interior of the cave in a glower.

The hole in his shoulder caught Magd's attention and she stepped forwards, raising her arms to guide him deeper into the cave. His eyes locked on her and he  _snarled_. Her eyebrows dropped low over her eyes and she bared her teeth at him in response. "You've got a hole in your shoulder, you're going to  _sit down_  and get  _treated_." TI chirped up from the darkness with the translation for her. There was a moment of indecision before the tentacle headed alien lowered his gun – a large one at that – and swept past her to the impromptu 'medical bay'. He sat facing the entrance, feet crossed in front of him and gun placed beside him, within easy reach.

Settling behind a false bravado, her insides quaking now that she had to  _treat_  the aggressive alien, she grabbed a pair of scissors from a side pocket and set to work massacring his shirt to get it off. As she pulled each piece away she revealed more and more pale green skin, marred with puckered white and reddened scars. As she closed in on the area of the wound, the skin was coated with red. The hole itself was a decent size and went clear through his body. She could probably fit two fingers in there and stick them out the other side.

His breath hissed between his teeth as she removed the clothing around the wounds. Doc waved the injector at her, loaded with an anaesthetic, and she gratefully took it. She wasn't sure how conservative they'd need to be with dispensing medication, now that they were on foot. Throwing that thought out, she pushed the injector against his left deltoid and depressed it. One by one, the muscles in his chest relaxed. It was odd, to see such familiar muscles flexing beneath green tinged flesh.

Anaesthetic taking its full effect, Magd returned to the hole with a snapped on pair of surgical gloves. Her fingers probed the area, nose almost touching skin as her eye inspected the edges and the insides. Fibres of his shirt had burnt into his skin with the blast, and her fingers peeled what she could off. She pulled the mangled sleeve off his arm as she walked around to inspect is back, taking note of the array of scarring down his spine and sides. Her lips pursed and she squatted to check the exit wound.

This side was worse. It hadn't cauterised as much as the front, and was oozing blood, which obstructed her vision of melted fibres. There were a few on the upper edges she could peel off, before she pulled back and prepped a compression bandage. The wound was awkwardly located beneath his collar bone, straight into his pectoralis, narrowly missing his deltoid, through his scapula and out his infraspinatus. It had gone through a highly mobile spot, and a right royal  _bitch_  to strap up and immobilise. At least it was his left arm. It would be out of action for a  _long_  time.

The saline flush went through first. A sterile cloth helped clear the holes and the built up gore on his back and chest. The antiseptic gauze was placed on his still-damp skin and pressed firmly down, causing the twi'lek to grimace. Padding went on next, to sop up any blood that seeped through the antiseptic gauze and to provide a suitable compress. After a few minutes of sitting back to analyse the location, Magdalena grabbed a thick bandage and began wrapping.

The bandage went first under his left armpit and up to his shoulder, where it crossed over and fed down and under his other armpit. Two more rinse-and-repeat wraps had the compression bandage on firmly. She picked up another wrap and took hold of his left arm, bringing it up to sit across his flat stomach.

"Could you please hold that there? I need to immobilise the arm," she said without looking up. On TI's translation, Zenith's right hand came up to hold his left arm in place. Sensible man. Alien. Twi'lek. Whatever.

This new wrap went around his chest twice, to keep skin off skin (which she knew was fiendishly uncomfortable), then expanded to include his bicep. She fed it over his right shoulder, before looping it around his wrist, back up to his right shoulder, and around his chest and bicep once more. Now vigorously contained, Zenith relaxed his grip on his left arm and placed his right back within twitching distance of his gun. Tetchy bugger.

She chanced a look up at his face, sucking in a breath when she met the full force of his purple glare. She'd scrambled back before she caught herself and straightened her spine. Amusement glittered in those heliotrope depths, raising her ire and causing her to glare back at him, but he was already staring out the entrance.

Magd crept over to where Doc was still working on the other guard. He had been bloody lucky. The torso wound was nowhere near as serious as it initially looked, merely skimming his side. The leg, on the other hand, had a gaping hole through the thigh, just to the inside of the femur.

She pulled her current gloves off and snapped on a new pair, slipping in to assist. One of the soldiers was holding the man on his side, allowing Doc full access to both sides of the thigh, while another was holding the leg itself elevated by an inch and very, very still. It was the work of a moment, with an additional pair of gloved hands, to apply the gauze and pressure bandages and strap it all up.

"It's likely the femural artery has been severed," Doc said as they rolled the man onto his back. Magd pursed her lips and frowned at the unconscious soldier. "We'll find out soon enough."

Magd eased her gloves off as Doc tended to the burn line down the man's side. She slipped them inside the little plastic 'rubbish bag' and slumped back against the wall of the cave. Boris, tongue lolling out the side of his maw, flopped down next to her with a great sigh and a whuff. She tilted her head back to rest against the cold stone and closed her eyes, letting out a great sigh of her own. Her arm slung over Boris' back, fingers digging into the soft fur of his sides.

What meagre light made it past her eyelids was blocked off, and she squeezed one eye open. They both flung open in surprise at the sight of Zenith towering over her, still completely topless and holding a hand-gun.  _Nice abs_ , her brain could not help put throw into her skull, despite the unease curdling her stomach.

"Girl, do you know how to shoot?" he snarled. At TI's hasty translation, she shook her head. Boris rumbled his discontent beneath her fingers, now clenched into his fur. "Learn." The hand gun was dropped unceremoniously into her lap. Hands floundered in the air to catch it, and she sat, holding the gun awkwardly by the barrel, as the green alien stalked back to the entrance.


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

_Cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse_

* * *

They remained at the first evacuation point for a full week. Kepsa's leg was amputated the next day – Doc had been right. The femoral artery had been severed by the blast and was no longer supplying blood to the rest of the leg. They had sent one of the soldiers out to bury it far away from camp. Magd had no wish to meet another of those giant lizards. Her skin crawled at the memory, although she wasn't sure if that was for the memory of brains hitting her skin, or of the lizard itself.

It was the single most excruciating week Magdalena had lived through. They were confined to the cave – barring that one soldier who ducked out under cover of dawn to get rid of the leg – and everyone was on tenterhooks. Even the usually affable Doc was snappish and grouchy, although Magd suspected that may also be caffeine withdrawals.

After the first day, Magd had stopped asking Zenith what his pain levels were like and had begun judging it on how pinched his eyes were looking. The further down his brows were drawn, the tighter the areas around the corners of his eyes and the corners of his lips, the greater the pain. Then she'd slap in an anaesthetic vial and jab the injector into his neck while he glared balefully at her.

He never snapped at her for it, and once she thought she may have seen a glimmer of relief in those purple irises. But she could never could tell with him.

It was much to everyone's relief when Zenith ordered them to move out.

The man who had been … well … nearly eaten, had awoken on the second day, launched himself upright, grabbed Doc's arm and yelled something, which TI translated as being along the lines of "we have to evacuate, they know everything."

Yorick, as he was called (Magd had to stifle her giggle but could not resist quoting Hamlet, especially as TI was the only one who could understand her) was now sitting propped up on the gurney, chatting away to Kepsa, who was sitting with his remaining leg swinging over the bottom of the stretcher. Doc had decreed neither were in a fit state for normal movement, and, after a quiet 'discussion' with Zenith, the twi'lek had consented.

So they rolled out, quite literally, when the first blush of light touched the sky. Obaden and Koff, two of the soldiers, pushed the gurney. Doc kept pace with his patients, keeping one eye on the rather more precariously balanced Kepsa, while sucking a caffeinated drink pack.

Rec walked at Magd's side, Boris whuffing cheerfully on her other. The kath hound had managed to snap up an investigating havrap – which was damn fortunate, as they really didn't have much food for the growing beasty at all. Shortly after that incident, Rec had taken Magd off to one side and shown her how to break down the hand gun she had stuffed down the side of TI's 'backpack'.

He'd given her a full lesson on how everything fit together, how it needed to be maintained, how it all worked and basic trouble shooting. Unfortunately, there was quite a technology gap. While she understood some of it, as far as she was concerned, she put the thing in the barrel and the other thing up the grip and when she pulled the trigger, magic happened and a small discharge of energy came out the muzzle. Rec had tried to explain it, but the gap in knowledge was just a bit much for Magd.

Oh, and the safety. Both safety locks.

The pace Zenith had set was gruelling. His pack had been emptied and partitioned into the other bags, on Doc's orders, but he kept his rifle strapped to his back. They wound their way through toothy rocks, skirting the open fields with their herds of bormu. Zenith kept point, his eyes the first to sweep the new ground, his boots the first to step around the next corner. His footing was sure, his legs tireless.

Magd was not. By midday, her feet were screaming – she'd never walked so far in her life! Her legs and back ached, and her shoes were too tight on her swollen toes. The moment they broke for rest, she dropped to the ground with a groan. Boris flopped down next to her, tongue lolling out of his mouth in a dog-ish grin.

Doc fussed over his patients before flopping down next to Magd and handing her a caffeinated drink pack, which she accepted with a grateful smile.

The break was over far too soon for everyone's liking. Zenith was restless, pacing, purple eyes roving the terrain. He expected an ambush.

It didn't come that day. Nor the next.

By the third day, Magdalena felt like the walking dead. She assumed, in her rare moments of clarity, that she probably looked like the walking dead. She stumbled onwards in a haze of rest breaks and helping hands.

She honestly could have kissed that grumpy green twi'lek when he finally called 'break' half way through what she thought might have been the fourth day. Koff peeled away from the group, ducking between jutting stone. Magd slumped to the ground, Boris flopping down in front of her. She gratefully sprawled her arms over his back and rested her forehead in his fur. She heard a thump as Doc deposited himself next to her.

"The Doctor says we are nearly at the designated meeting point," TI explained. "It appears that Koff has left to explore the point and confirm that it has not been compromised." Her only available response was a half hearted grunt of acknowledgement. She did perk up, however, when a caffeinated drink pack was shoved into her hand.

" _Thank you, Doc_ ," Magd said, carefully enunciating the Basic words. He flashed her an exhausted smile, tipping his own drink packet at her before gulping it down.

Honestly, if it hadn't been for the caffeinated drink packs she didn't know how she would have managed the last few days. She'd never had to sleep on the hard ground before and had come to the conclusion that it was entirely unconducive to restful slumber. She awoke each morning feeling worse than when she had fallen asleep.

She suspected she wasn't the only one.

Each and every one of their party looked haggard. Even Yorick and Kepsa, relegated as they were to the gourney and thus doing nothing but sitting or lying there, looked wan. Zenith was becoming a more sickly green as the days went on, although to their luck they were  _very_  well stocked with anaesthetic and anti-inflammatory vials.

Magd didn't know how long she sat there, clasping a long emptied drink packet and staring at Boris' fur as though it contained the secrets to life itself, before Koff returned. She turned her head to watch and let the murmur of conversation wash over her.

It wasn't long before TI piped up, "it sounds like connection has been established with other evacuees and we have been asked to remain in our present location for the time being." Doc breathed something that must have been an expletive of relief, before hauling himself to his feet to find a suitable enough spot to park Kepsa and Yorick and set himself up. Rec got up to assist, indicating for Magd to remain where she was.

She shoved a few rocks out of the way and sprawled herself alongside Boris, resting her head on his shoulder.

She was asleep within seconds.


	20. Chapter 20

* * *

_When your dreams all fail_   
_And the ones we hail_   
_Are the worst of all_   
_And the blood's run stale_

* * *

An errant blast whipped past her, narrowly missing her nose, and Magd fell back with a muffled "motherfuck!" This time she dropped to her stomach and wriggled out of cover, hand grasping for Samson's leg. He'd been hit in the shoulder with a blaster and had gone down with a spectacular  _thunk_ , which had more to do with his head hitting a rock than anything else. Both hands wrapped around his ankle, fingers tightening in his pants fabric.

"Pull!" she growled behind her. She felt Boris' jaw wrap around her lower leg and clamp down on the padding she'd stuffed up her pants, before she was being dragged backwards across the ground. Dirt and rocks scraped her legs and chest, but it was by far the safest way of getting people behind cover.

She quickly set to examining her patient. Semi conscious, perfectly normal pupil reactions to pinpoint light. Her gloved fingers gently probed his neck, probing the cervical vertebrae from C7 up to C1. Nothing out of alignment. Her fingers continued up the occipital bone to navigate the parietal bone, which she had seen had taken the brunt of the impact. No damage to the dermis, thank goodness, but it was going to bruise like a bitch, and he'd have a thumper of a headache later on.

She'd get him in for a scan as soon as they were back at the base, just to make sure there was no bleed in the brain.

Immediate concerns assuaged, she turned to his shoulder. As was the case with all blasted blaster wounds, his shirt had partially fused with his skin. Still, Samson had only taken a glancing shot, so instead of a gaping hole where his shoulder should be, he merely had a lateral scorch of roughly a handspan. Magd whipped out her injector, loaded up an anaesthetic and punched it into his bicep. She thumbed that vial out and, while stowing her injector away with one hand, pulled out the scissors with the other. She could spend the time separating cloth from skin later. The shirt was destroyed in moments.

Scissors were shoved back into their pocket and out came the antiseptic bandages, hastily thrown on and taped down.

Another howl as someone else fell beyond the rocks she was tucked behind. That one didn't sound like hers. If it was an Imperial, he wouldn't be left alive to report back. Zenith would make sure of that.

The area went silent. Magd poked her head out, eyes scanning the fallen. All Imperial. Only Samson had been hit this time. Zenith was pulling the driver from the massive land transport. Why they were still using land transport to move things around, Magd still didn't understand. It certainly wasn't the most efficient on Balmorra, and it sure as shit wasn't the most secure. As they just proved. Once again.

She jumped as the driver was shot. Once, in the head. She clamped down the nausea that still rose, despite having seen  _much_  worse.

Their first raid after the resistance had splintered had gone fantastically. They had lucked upon a fully stocked medical supply caravan. Three of their team, including Rec, had been injured. Rec, fortunately, not too badly, and with the new medical supplies, they could patch up everyone to a much greater degree than they otherwise would have.

They'd even found a tissue regenerator bot pack, which had allowed Doc to fully rebuild Zenith's scapula and soft tissue. Now he just had a dip and some puckered scar tissue to show where the hole had been.

The months had flown by as their splinter had separated further. Doc had left with Chemish to support the home base splinter, while she had stayed with Zenith and his section. The group of exhausted resistance fighters who raided any Imperial outpost, caravan, or base they could. And some they couldn't. For those they couldn't, they simply harried the Imperials for a time before melting once more into the jagged rocks and dirt-choked grass that had become their home.

Boris had been an absolute god-send, and not even Zenith begrudged the kath hound his full share of meat. Now at his full size, and filling out fast, Boris was a force to be reckoned with. He was an exceptional hunter. He had located an entire herd of nerfs and, while the stupid things had chewed their own their own cud, brought down one on the outskirts of the group and dragged it back to the waiting (and starving) resistance group.

They had eaten well that night, and Boris had been seen in a new light ever since.

The intelligent kath hound was also integral to Magd's battlefield first aid. She had rigged him up with saddle bags, and in it he carried the tissue regenerator bot pack and what was essentially a hand-held defibrillator. The regenerator bot was rarely used, and the defibrillator had fortunately never yet been used.

Still, it was better to have them and not need them than not have them and have someone die from the lack.

This raid had gone better than their last few. They'd lost Rhodie two weeks ago. He'd taken a blaster to the face. Obaden had as well, but it had skimmed his face and only taken off his left ear and part of his jaw. The regenerator bots had been used for that, but they couldn't rebuild what wasn't there. He could hear reasonably well, and his face looked a bit lop-sided without his satellite-dish ears, but he could see, function, and most importantly, fight.

Obaden and Rec came around to check on her, Rec giving her a relieved smile. "Not hurt?" he enquired. She'd taken to leaving TI back at their night camp to save her back and allow her to carry more medical related equipment on their excursions. It left the conversation a bit stilted, but it worked better this way.

"Not hurt," she confirmed, then pointed at Samson. "Hurt, head, shoulder, safe move." She would work on sentence structure later, when they weren't moving all the time and falling onto their bed mats at the end of each day (or, in her case, onto Boris). For now, she had learned the bare necessary vocabulary to get her by.

Rec nodded and bent down to help Samson up, looping the good arm around his shoulders and wrapping his own arm around Samson's waist. Obaden followed them, pulling blasters from dead hands as they went.

"Boris, hup!" Magd said, pointing at the caravan. They'd drive it a ways further as they sorted through the contents and salvaged everything they could, before dumping it in the next crevice. Or off the next cliff.

The hound lept up into the body of the caravan and she grasped the offered arm, hauling herself up with Zenith's strength. She flashed him a grateful smile and followed her hound further into the bowels of the craft. Koff was already poking around the driver's compartment, and before too long, the hulking terrestrial vehicle was jolting forwards and they were off.


	21. Chapter 21

Doc was going to murder him. He was going to fucking murder that green-headed, bantha-brained asshat.

It had been three days since the news. Two since Zenith had last checked in. No news from the rescue team _at all_. So Doc was sitting in his comfortable little ward back at base twiddling his thumbs and eviscerating anyone who came near him who wasn't bleeding to death. He only lightly brutalised those patients.

The infirmary had never been so quiet. He hated every second of it.

Magd had long since been relegated to field work. She was even-headed under pressure, incredible with triage, and had Boris to help her with the heavy lifting so she could carry more supplies. During the down time, though, she would still hover around the infirmary, less his assistant and more a doctor all in her own right. He thoroughly enjoyed downtime.

They could now almost hold a conversation. She was still a bit shaky with sentence structure, but her vocabulary was growing in leaps and bounds. She was invigorating in all the ways he could never have imagined she would be. Fiercely intelligent, highly intuitive, and a wicked sense of humour that was only just starting to come out.

And she was missing. Zenith had called it in – taken in a fire fight with Imps. Chemish had been the one to tell him. Chemish had been the only one with the balls to tell him. That had been three, nearly four days ago now.

He wasn't going to murder the tentacle-head. He was going to dissect him. Slowly.

* * *

Illara took a deep breath, exhaled her muscles' tension. Her saber was easily accessed should she need it. She hoped she wouldn't. Her work for the rebellion on Balmorra had led her to this Twi'lek, who now came to her with anger in his steps and a favour on his lips.

"What may I assist you with, Zenith?" she asked, turning to face the Twi'lek.

"There is a transport you will assist us with capturing." Fury curdled his voice. "I will send you the location. There will be a Sith on this transport," he continued. "Take care of him while we retrieve the contents of the transport."

"Of course I will assist with this, but may I ask what the contents of this transport are?" Illara clasped her hands behind her back, shoulders loose.

"Something that was taken from us," Zenith snarled.

Illara blinked as the twi'lek stalked out. Turned and raised an eyebrow at Felix, who shrugged.

"Must be important."

"Indeed."


	22. Chapter 22

* * *

_Sing me a song of a lass that is gone  
_ _Say could that lass be I?_

* * *

Standing at the coordinates she was provided, Illara could clearly sense the oncoming darkness. Qyzen hoisted the techblade and tucked himself between jagged rocks. It was in situations like these that Illara was grateful to her taciturn companion and his skills.

The transport rumbled into sight. It was a hulking, ugly thing with a large driver compartment and an even larger, reinforced body. The material of the cabin proved to be ineffectual against Qyzen's techblade, which slid through the metal as he ran along the roof, thrusting the blade down and into the driver on arrival.

Illara bounced past him, light toes skimming the bulkhead. A deft twist and her sabre hummed into the roof of the body, hot metal sizzling the edges. A quick jump to one side avoided the Sith's sabre beneath her feet. A few skipped steps and dodged sabres later and the roof hatch exploded upwards and the Sith, pure in his red skin and fleshy tendrils, followed behind the twisted metal.

Illara spun her sabre behind her, dropping her centre of gravity and minimising her exposed profile. The Sith mirrored her actions, his sabre tipped towards her. There they paused, assessing, gauging one's strength against the other. The Sith was young, his training yet to be complete, but that was no reason to underestimate him.

He was impulsive. He feinted to her left, moving within leg-reach, and kicked out towards her knees. Her own foot connected with the inside of his thigh and shoved him away. He landed heavily in a wide stance. A weak one. She pressed in, catching him off balance as he scrabbled for footing. Backwards he stumbled, her footing sure, until his toes caught on a ridge in the roofing and he turned his retreat into an onslaught.

Very unwise to underestimate this Sith. Despite his oft wild flailings, he was fast and his blows always struck true. A quick flick of her wrist raised a monolithic slab of stone and sent it at his side, forcing him back and away to avoid the impact. It gave Illara enough breathing space to launch herself back at him, to have him on the defensive once more. She ducked the slicing blow, coming up and under his guard with an open palm to his sternum. The added Force behind her own strength took him from his feet and hurled him off the vehicle and into the surrounding rocks. He slid down and was lost to her sight, but not to her senses.

She pursued him, trusting that Qyzen would ensure the safety of those behind.

* * *

Zenith and Rec were the first to arrive at the dead vehicle. Obaden was fast on their heels, eyes trained on the fighting Sith and Jedi, rifle at the ready: nose down, safety off. Pax shuffled after. No one cared to admit it, but they were all terrified of what they might find beyond that door. She had been missing for three days, plucked right off the back end of their raid. She'd left Boris back at camp with an upset stomach – he'd eaten something and had been grizzly and lethargic all day – and when Rec had looked behind her cover, she hadn't been there.

Zenith didn't think he'd ever felt his heart beat so painfully as it had that day. Rec had been inconsolable, huddled into Boris for a good day before they'd found a lead. Then he'd thrown himself into the planning with a fervour that bordered on fanatical. When Zenith had called for volunteers for the rescue mission, not a single hand had remained down. He'd chosen Pax and Obaden for the mission. Rec had refused to stay behind.

Pax made quick work of the lock on the door. Zenith took a deep breath and slid it open.

A surprised grunt and a speedily executed duck were the only things that saved Zenith from being brained by a pair of large manacles clamped over thin wrists. He lunged back up to catch Magd as she overbalanced and tumbled over the edge of the vehicle, her one good eye wide with shock. He stumbled when she turned her tumble into a full body hurl with a loud wail and plastered herself to him, arms (manacles, chains and all) around his neck and legs firmly locked around his waist.

The team stood for a moment in shock and silence. Her head was shorn, showing the mess of bruising and cuts extended across her entire head, not just her face. Her clothes were torn, any skin made visible abraded or lacerated in some way. Her arms blistered as though burned. The manacles left a constant smear of red from the raw skin beneath.

She let out a heaving sob and shoved her face into Zenith's neck. This seemed to pull them out of their trance. Obaden raised his rifle as Rec began to herd them. After a moment's consideration, Zenith wrapped one arm around her chest and the other about her waist and took off after Obaden. Pax followed, assessing the manacles, while Rec brought up the rear. Her legs slipped after his first few steps and he swore under his breath, hitching her weight. She yelped. Oh havrap-shit, of course she'd hurt on jostling. Steeling himself for the inevitable hitched eyebrows, Zenith adjusted his hold until his hands were clasped together below her backside.

It was a short run back to their hijacked shuttle. Nox opened the side-door from the cabin. They leapt in, Pax diving straight for the small med-kit stowed away in the back. The side doors hissed shut and the shuttle roared to life. Pax scrabbled back just in time to clip himself into the seat next to Zenith, Magd now straddling his lap for take off. Obaden had taken the other side. The shuttle surged forwards and upwards. Pax pulled out the steraliser and swab and began to search for an unabraided piece of skin on Magd's arm nearest him.

"Here," Obaden said, reaching around for the spray and swab. "I've got some clear skin." Pax handed them over and prepped the injector with the mild general anaesthetic Doc had screamed blue murder at them to give her first. Swapped the injector for the used swab and spray. Unpacked the antibiotic vial Doc had also 'said' to use.

Magd began to slump shortly after the antibiotic was given. Zenith's arms across her back kept her in place even as she listed to one side. She mumbled something that could have been 'thank you' before her breathing completely evened out and her body went limp. Obaden handed the injector back to Pax with a grim look. The cabin remained silent the entire trip to headquarters.


End file.
